Memoirs Of J

Tonight’s episode of 30 Rock  was called ‘when it rains it pours,’ and hey, what a coincidence because today we found out that the colloquialism applies to us having to spend lots of money.

First, we had (have) the window replacement project.  About $7,500…ouch.  But it was necessary, so what can you do.  Related to that is the skylights.  We have a skylight in each bathroom, and both are old, leaking, and all around in poor condition.  That is running us about another $2,200.  Again, necessary.

Then today, C calls from downstairs, “come down here – we have a problem!”  So I went down to the basement and followed him around the corner, ending up at a huge puddle surrounding the hot water heater.  Uh oh…

Upon inspection, we saw it was leaking from the bottom of the tank and had rust around the whole bottom – obviously in need of replacement.  Not surprising since it is the original water heater, so 20+ years old.  So we took a trip up to Menard’s and bought a new water heater.  It wasn’t extremely expensive – a few hundred dollars instead of a few thousand – but we still need to get a plumber to come out and install it for us.  And everyone knows that plumbers ass rape you.  Yeah, don’t leave hate comments.  I know plumbers are skilled, know the code, and all that, but still – it’s expensive as hell to hire one @ like $200/hour.

good ol' fashioned ass pillage!

You’ve probably heard of the “freshman 15,” right?  It’s a stereotype about what typically happens in a kid’s first year of college – they gain weight due to the availability of food, late night pizzas, sodas, and all that scrumptious stuff.

Well when I was a freshman in college (yeah, way back then in ’96 – shut up, I’m old now), I didn’t  gain 15.  I didn’t even  gain 5.  I lost about 20 or more!

It wasn’t anything intentional.  I was an average weight (I mean normal for my height – not average as in “average obese American”) going in and didn’t have any problems or image issues about weight at all.  It was literally something I never gave a thought to.

I think it was a combination of all the walking on MSU’s sprawling campus, coupled with the fact that I rarely ate breakfast, was often too busy for much of a lunch, and picked at the cafeteria “food” at dinner.  I didn’t avoid junk foods, and was effectively addicted to Mountain Dew.  I was admittedly underweight and it continued for my entire college tenure.

I didn’t work out, ate …one could say, poorly (chips, fast food, soda, pop tarts, etc), yet couldn’t gain an  ounce to save my life.  Really – friends, family, and other acquaintances would accuse me of being anorexic – I never was – and tried to shove donuts or other treats at me,  which I would happily devour.  Nothing ever happened.  I just chalked it up to luck and a fast metabolism and went about with my habits.

Well fast forward to now… UGH.  I’m not fat, don’t get me wrong.  I would not let that happen.  I’m in the “normal” range for my height now.  But I do need to limit my sweets.  I restrict myself from having coke or mt dew except for on occasion, much to my dismay because I unfortunately love soda, especially those two kinds.  I have to get a work out in, ideally every day just to maintain my current weight.  The problem is I would like to lose a few pounds and get toned.  But I hate restricting myself, and I have a hard time finding time to work out these days since I need to wait until J is in bed for the night, and  by then I am pretty exhausted.

I blame the desk job.  When I began working as a cube jockey after college is when I actually started putting on a few pounds.  These days, I try to get out and at least take a walk or something during breaks, but it is tough.  I’m not seeing much improvement, and it’s not like I really eat that much that I could reduce food intake.  I’d be starving!  Desk jobs guarantee an expanding ass.   No doubt about it…

So I guess they were right about enjoying being able to eat whatever I wanted at a young age.  I scoffed at the time, but yeah… I’m finding that they were correct, and it does actually start catching up with you.

I have no idea why I thought of this today, but here goes.  When I was in 2nd grade at St. Joe’s, I had a classmate named Maggie.  Maggie was I’d say an average classmate – not really one very memorable, pretty quiet (much like myself), a little chunky.  She was nice enough…  I mean all the girls that age invite all the other girls from class to their birthday parties and such.  So you could say she was a friend, even.

One day when we were all lined up in front of the blackboard waiting for recess (or maybe it was lunch or church; I don’t recall exactly).  I was a rather quiet kid, and normally didn’t make a lot of ruckus in class, so naturally I stood quietly in line reading the map of the world.  I remember looking at Africa, Niger specifically, thinking it was the same as “nigger” and wondering why our map had swear words.  I vacillated over whether I should mention it to the teacher so she could remove it, or keep it a dirty secret for only myself to know.  Aah to be 8 and so naive…

Anyway, back to the story.  Suddenly Maggie, standing a few kids back from me,  farted loudly.  Everyone heard the unmistakable PFFFFTTT come from Maggie’s rear.  Even in the dim light, you could see the redness creep up her face as her eyes darted around embarrassingly.  She glanced desperately at the teacher, Mrs. Van Dam, as nearly all of the other kids laughed while several boys exclaimed “she FARTED – can you believe she FARTED??!!  EEEEWWWW!”

When Mrs. Van Dam finally quashed the uncontrollable giggle-fest that invariably happens when anything fart related happens in a group of 8-year-olds,  she reprimanded the class.  Her explanation is the best part though.  Instead of talking about how it is a natural bodily function, everyone does it or something to that effect, she opted to tell everyone that Maggie had some sort of disorder that causes her to “pass gas” involuntarily and that we should ignore it.  What the hell?  Seriously?  I’ve never heard of “involuntary fart disease.”

So the memory of this event has randomly popped into my mind for years…that’s how big of an impression this ‘involuntary fart disease’ lecture made on me.  I just can’t get it out of my mind now.

Taco Bell has this new chicken flat-bread sandwich – you’ve probably seen the commercials.  We each tried one a couple of weeks ago on our way home from picking up J.  I thought it was really good …at the time.  The bread is soft and light, and the chicken / cheese combination was very spicy.  So I was happy with the prospect of a new taco bell item that I’d actually like (you know, since I don’t care for beans, sauces, creams, most meats, condiments of any kind, etc).  Right now, I’m limited to either the standard crunchy taco, or the chicken soft taco minus the ranch and all the other shit I don’t like.  And you CAN’T special order at taco bell and expect it to come out as you’ve ordered…  so basically that leaves me with the crunchy taco.  Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing as the crunchy taco is quite delicious.  In fact, it is the only beef I’ll ever eat!  But sometimes you feel like mixing it up a little, and I can’t at this particular eatery…

So the new taco bell item was exciting to me.  Fast forward another week…  we went to a different taco bell and I ordered the chicken flat-bread.  I took a couple of bites and tasted something funny…there was a mother-f-ing sauce in it!  Sauce!!  I suspected something ranch based but C said that it was not ranch.  Sure enough, upon inspection there was some sort of pinkish cream drizzled onto my chicken and cheese.  I was sickened.  The commercial explicitly states that it is a simple flat-bread with chicken and cheese filling.  There was no mention of sauce!

I went home and researched the blogosphere – it turns out that the identity of the sauce is the worst possible outcome.  Mayonnaise – it’s fucking mayo based chipotle sauce!  Why do restaurants always need to ruin food with mayo products!?!?!

I may try the sandwich again, only I’d have to order without the sauce.  And that’s very risky, very risky indeed.  It’s risky enough special ordering the chicken soft taco without the ranch, but to risk biting into mayo is a vile, disgusting scenario that I want no part of.

AW HELLZ NAW!!!

So everyone  – let me rephrase that – EVERYONE – has some sort of stress  in their life, right?  But most of us can get along just fine without self-combusting, having a stroke, or shitting ourselves.  Or even, dare I say, make an utter fool ass of ourselves.

this is the guy

I really need to do something with my hair.  It’s about time to get it cut and I want to do something different.  It needs to be something low maintenance though – none of that shit where I have to use no less than 3 products each morning and have to spend no less than 45 minutes on my hair.

I browsed some hair cut example sites earlier looking for something doable for me… with no luck.  I don’t really know what I want or what would work well with my hair type (type being a wiry rat’s nest, perhaps).  I am thinking of asking a stylist for suggestions but I don’t know… there are just some things I am unwilling to do, like go short or perm it or something like that.

I got into another political discussion at work today.  I try not to, but it just seems to happen at least once every couple of weeks.

A little background – I work around a lot of conservatives who admit to getting the majority of their news from Fox.  I just can’t help but interject when people start talking about their religion being taken away (I’m speaking of Christians who think Christianity is in danger), having to take the country back, immigration, and freedom of speech.  The reason is that, while I can see where certain opinions are coming from, there is really no actual evidence that what they fear is going on really is.  It’s all based on emotion.

For instance, the predominant religion in the US is in no possible danger of being taken away or suppressed.  Nobody is trying to take anyone’s religion away (well, except for extremist Christians who would like to abolish Islam in the US).  Just because a mosque is being built near ground-zero does not mean we’re on the path to eliminating anyone’s Christian beliefs.

We got into a brief discussion on nativity scenes being banned at Christmas.  Ok, here’s the thing.  Nobody has been banned from having a nativity scene on their own property.  I have heard of a few controversies over nativity scenes or other religious items being removed from PUBLIC property.  Doesn’t anyone realize that the government can’t endorse a specific religion?  It’s not an affront to your personal beliefs when a city hall doesn’t put out a nativity scene – it has nothing to do with your personal rights and what you can do or believe.

On the other hand, it’s exclusionary for a public, governmental entity to openly endorse or practice anything religious.  Why?  Well, it’s not their function to be religious or celebrate certain holidays.  I mean, my personal take on seeing a nativity scene is  – whatever – I honestly don’t care if one is sitting on the lawn of city hall.  It doesn’t mean anything to me, and I think it is petty when “controversies” arise over this sort of thing.   But let’s face it – if someone does challenge a public religious display, then they’re kind of … correct.  Why should a public entity that is supposed to represent ALL of the public (contrary to popular belief, not just the white Christians) basically make a statement like “we’re Christians and the rest of you don’t belong or matter?”  Because that is what it amounts to…

The way I see it is white Christians have enjoyed “being in power” so-to-speak for the entire history of the county that the minute we get a half-black president, they feel that somehow the country is slipping away into the hands of “them.”  “Them” means non-white, non-Christian, non-male, or educated.  Why is it so hard to see that, yeah, some Americans are Muslim, or  Hindu, or atheist, or whatever.  We’re all Americans – it’s not Christians are American and nobody else is welcome in the club.  Us non-Christians are not trying to “usurp the country” or impose our beliefs/opinions on you; it’s just always been OUR country TOO and we’d like the majority to at least acknowledge that.

And the same thing happens with 1st amendment- freedom of speech, specifically.  The majority feels hurt and put upon if anyone suggests anything negative about their religion, or if anyone wants to be able to practice their own non-Christian beliefs, but they want the freedom to slam Islam, for example.  So they can’t say anything about you or try to “oppress” you, but you want to say whatever you want about them or restrict their worship or whatever else in the name of freedom of speech?   I thought the 1st amendment applied to all Americans?  Personally, I think all religion is complete and utter bullshit and I would like to see all of it disappear from the planet.  Not banned, just poof – vanished.  I don’t like religion, but I do acknowledge that we were founded with the idea that you can worship (or not worship) HOWEVER you want to without persecution.  That’s just my personal take on it.  I bet I can find people who would look like a bobble-head agreeing with me if I suggested the abolition of Islam in the US or something, but whoa… WHOA Christianity?  You can’t say that!

It’s just frustrating.  I really like the people I work around, don’t get me wrong, but they all fit the ‘American majority mold’ so hold that perspective.  When I question the things they say or ask for specifics on why they think what they do, I draw offense and shock, like how can I possibly not ‘get it’ or agree.  But I just don’t – I think a lot of people are just flat out wrong in their conclusions.

I think I’ve alluded to this before in one of my really old blogs, but it is a phenomenon that needs attention so I’m addressing it again.

Mothers of sons do not like the son’s significant other.  There is always something wrong with the girl, in mom’s eyes.

The reason I bring this up is because today my mom mentioned she felt bad because she thinks she hurt my brother’s feelings by asking him if he was still dating that “bimbo” girl (or something to that effect).  And he of course is, so I imagine the awkwardness…

This isn’t an isolated or uncommon thing though; in fact I believe it is very common amongst mothers.  I work with several people with sons who are dating girls that the mother disapproves of for whatever reason.  For instance, I’ve heard bitchiness, ugliness, not being friendly, being controlling, not having a good enough education or job, and not being fun cited as excuses for the disdain.  *No, I’m not saying my anecdotes are solid proof of anything.  It’s just something that I’ve seen enough to wonder about it.  Of course there are exceptions, and yes, I’ve seen other moms who adore the girl the son is with.

I’ve even been victim to this negativity myself.  My downfall is that I’m not “bubbly” or outgoing enough.  But what can I do though – I’m not little miss congeniality, and I rarely have much to say in groups (read: families) because I tend to be very introverted.  Is this enough to make me not good enough for someone?  I mean everyone has their weaknesses, and I will be the first to admit mine (hard to get to know, generally quiet, introverted, cynical, unattractive, to name a just few), but on the other hand I am funny, smart, loyal, self-sufficient, and have a great education and job.

So what qualities hold the most weight?  Maybe I’m  just a bleeding heart, but I really believe *most* people have more positive traits than negative ones.  Do the fewer negatives tend to outweigh all of the positives combined, as to lead to an overall negative opinion?

Or do people simply put the most weight on whatever will support their predetermined or desired opinion, which in  the case of a mom of a son is to not want to “lose” their baby to another woman because she thinks nobody will be as good as taking care of him as she is / was?  So before even knowing the girl and barring any legitimate reason (say, she’s a prostitute, criminal, or something else that would justify being off-put by her), the impression is already decided – she’s just not good enough.  I mean I don’t know, that’s just a hypothesis.  In my personal history, I’ve assumed physical appearance is an excuse because I’m not they all-american blond, perky little cheerleader.

I don’t know.  I’ve been off my zoloft for a few days now so it’s making me feel weird and pensive.  I got my refill today though so I should be all set in a day or two…

Oh my god I am so tired lately, especially today because it is Monday and Mondays are always the worst.  I was dying at work today; not only struggling to remain semi-conscience, but struggling to keep my eyelids from clamping shut and my head from slamming on the desk as well.

I went to bed at around midnight last night.  No idea why…I guess I just wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep.  Plus I never seem to have time  for anything  these days.  Between work and J, I get about an hour of “me time” except for the weekends (and then, only slightly more).  So if I want to work out, clean the house, read, blog – anything- it needs to be done at a time of night I should be winding down and going to sleep.

And don’t take that the wrong way – I knew that J was going  to be very demanding and time consuming and I adore my sweet little peach with all my heart, but my lackluster time management is really starting to catch up with me.  I think I might need to put my ‘to do’s’ list on hold for a couple of weeks and just go to bed by 10pm every nigh to redevelop a healthier routine.  This 4-5 hours of sleep per night just isn’t working anymore.

On the other hand though, I really need to exercise each day for at least 1/2 hour but when am  I going to find the time?  Some people like to do it in the morning  before showering.  I can’t fathom that in my current state, but perhaps once I get to where I am going to bed earlier it might be feasible.  I REALLY hate getting out of bed early though – I loathe it.  I am the queen of snooze button utilization.  So we’ll see how it goes…

Here is a dramatization of me in my cube today.

one dead-looking chiquita!

The weekend went by way too fast, but I guess that’s always the case.  I’m dreading work tomorrow and I ran out of zoloft.  Plus, I’m  so itchy right now that I can’t stand it but I can’t decide if it is mental or real.  The thing is,  before our trip people kept telling me about the bed bug outbreaks and to be careful of hotels.  So of course I was worried about that the whole trip.  Now that we’re home, I’m  still worrying and every little itch or just thinking about itches makes me itch more!  I don’t see any bites or marks or anything (yet) so I’m hopeful that this is all in my head.  I’d be so disgusted if we stayed at a place with those and ended up bringing home some little bastard hitchhikers.

Another issue I’ve been having lately is head congestion.  I think I may have developed allergies.  To what, I don’t know.  I just hope it’s not the cat.  Because of this, my nose has been feeling blocked and I’ve been unable to breathe through it, especially at night.  That’s when it’s the worst.   I tried sudafed and claritin – neither worked very well.  I also tried afrin (a nasal spray) and that worked quite well… but you’re not supposed to use it for more than a couple of days in a row.  Something about it backfiring and causing more congestion, so it becomes very hard for a person to stop using it.

Out of desperation, I decided to try a product I heard about on Dr Oz or some other show, I don’t know, but the point is I scoffed at the time.  It’s called a neti pot and basically it is a small pot that you use to flood your sinuses with a saline mixture.  The idea is to clear it out naturally and this has supposedly been a technique used for many years in India.  It is purported to reduce allergens and irritants.

It’s nasty though – you have to lean over the sink and pour this pot into one nostril, and the stream of saline flows through the sinuses and out the other nostril.  Then you switch sides to clear the other passage.  I was very apprehensive about flowing water through my nose.  I tried it and it feels like if you inhale accidentally underwater, kind of like a lot of pressure behind your nose and a strange feeling in your throat.  Then it is ticklish and almost unbearable – it summons a sneeze storm.  The first few tries for me resulted in saline flowing into my throat and mouth,  making me feel like throwing up.  It tastes awful.

I was completely frustrated because it seemed to clear my sinuses up immediately afterward, but quickly went back to the congestion by the time I was trying to sleep.  But, this thing gets great reviews and recommendations AND my purchase came with 50 packets of saline mix, so I figured I’d keep using it to see if it just takes time.

Thankfully, it appears that my sinuses are open as of this afternoon.  I really hope that this neti is working – I’ll definitely keep using it daily as part of my routine despite the discomfort and nastiness factor.