Tag Archives: adulthood

I Am Adult; Hear Me Roar.

13 Mar

Tonight I had a bit of a chocolate craving and I didn’t want to give in so instead I went out for frozen yogurt and then bought 5 bags of M&Ms and ate 3 of them.

It happens.  I don’t like it, but it happens.

I still have to do the last day of Level 3 from Ripped in 30 tonight, so right when I’m going in and out of Table Top and my triceps are screaming bloody murder and the pot of jelly I store in my belly is rattling around on top of my human table, I will certainly regret this.

Oh, and there’s a string cheese wrapper right beside me too, I just realized, so I guess I ate that too.  I must have trance-chomped that to death. Add that to the jelly pot as well.

Roar.

Roar.

I’m having one of those days where I don’t want to do anything but I have a lot to do so I only pick the things that are fun and leave the rest “for later”.   That means that in a few days when I’m really under the wire, I’ll slam out all the things I have to do like super woman and then retire to play video games as a reward until I pass out in a pile of my slobber and Doritos crumbs. When I wake, I will question my ability parent another human being in the future.

For example, I needed to do laundry today. Like, really needed to.  Like, wearing my last pair of even remotely acceptable underwear needed to. Tomorrow I’ll have to wear a skirt and keep a no-underwear secret all day, fashion a new pair out of some scrap fabric, go to the store to get more underwear, or go out tonight after Jillian Michaels, get cash from an ATM, go to the store and get quarters, and then come home and do laundry.

Instead of doing any of those things, I’m watching Pretty in Pink. Poor Molly Ringwald and her thrift shop taste. If she only knew that a few decades later, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis would validate her opinions on secondhand clothing and rich schoolboy Blaine’s friends would find her quirky and cool in a topical sort of way.

I also need to do the dishes.  I’ve been neglecting them for so long that they are starting to develop a funk. I will continue to neglect them until I am unable to feed myself without first washing dishes. Then I will curse my childish ways, wish I would maintain a stricter dishwashing regimen before they get overwhelming, and again question my ability to parent another human being in the future.

My days are full of self-doubt. Underwear and clean dishes and trying to eat less than 5 bags of M&Ms a day: adulthood is a high calling.

Well, now I’ve put it out there.  I’ve just pushed it into the magical world of the Interwebz and now I look like a big, unambitious sloppity slop.  I feel all accountable and whatnot.  So here it goes – I’m going to close this laptop, do Jillian Michaels, get so angry from my jelly belly and her constant yelling in my face that I take out my rage on the tower of dishes in the kitchen, and then I will clean the house until I find enough quarters in the cracks and crevices of my hermit nest to do a proper load of laundry.  

And tomorrow I will wear my clean underwear and eat off my clean dishes and rub my less gelatinous stomach in pride.

I am Jackie. Hear me roar. ♣

P.S. I’ll soon announce the details of the 30 Day Challenge or the Lollipop Tuesday challenge for you all to take part in. I’ll also announce a prize related to said contest. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, go here to read more and vote on which adventure you would prefer. Polls close soon.  Try not to pee yourself with excitement. If you have any questions, I’ll be in the kitchen.

 

 

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The Best Baby Shower Ever

13 Feb

Man, I hate baby showers.

I pretty much hate all showers that don’t include water. It mostly has to do with the idea of so much estrogen stuffed into a room together, and a little to do with the fact that it’s a social engagement and requires me to leave me apartment.

So I was forced into the light of day this past weekend to celebrate the inevitable arrival of my next nephew, already dubbed David. This presents an awkward problem for me, since my David is named…David. I feel very strange calling a very small human who is related to me by blood the same thing I call a very large human who I find attractive.  I’m trying to come up with a nickname for the squirt, but I also call my form of the human David both “Davey” and “Dave”, so those are out as alternatives. Someone suggested “Li’l D” but that’s  too mediocre-white-rapper for my taste. I could go by his middle name, but the middle name is a tribute to my brother, so that’s another hot mess.

Anyway I was at a baby shower celebrating the almost fully baked muffin and was the only female in the room who had not had a child. Or snagged a husband.

For those of you unawares, when you’ve been with someone for five years and/or you’re closing in on 30, it’s virtually impossible to attend adult social engagements without being badgered about when the big day is.  And now that America is all willy-nilly about the importance of getting married before having babies, I’m not even asked when I’m getting married anymore; they just hop right to “so when do you think you’ll have kids?!”

For the record, both of these questions are rude.  And annoying. Please stop it.

But that’s just the surface of why baby showers are so awful.  The real reason is that when you’re trapped in a room with a bunch of moms who haven’t had a chance to get out in a while and connect with other moms, they want to talk about mom stuff.  In my case, pretty much everyone was a relatively new mom and were the proud owners of wobbly toddlers. With the topic of the day being an impending birth, it was only a matter of time before conversation veered toward the inevitable: the miracle of  childbirth also known as the disgusting process of labor.

I have a lot of questions about labor that I don’t really want to know the answer to.  They didn’t cover the details in my health class. All I remember is a video that had absolutely no warning attached to it showing me things I never dreamed I would be shown against my will.  I try to avoid discussion surrounding labor because I’m afraid that when it’s confirmed that you really do poop yourself in the process, I’m never going to allow myself to have children.

At a baby shower, labor-related discussions are inevitable.  Because just when you’re ready to hunker down with a meatball sub and some cake, everyone starts talking about the pain of pushing a watermelon-sized human out their hoo-has like it’s no big deal.

It’s not their fault, really.  It’s just that they’re moms; the things they’ve seen in the process of caring for a creature that is unable to eat, clean, or poop on its own has turned them into unflinching warriors of bodily functions.  I admire it, really.  There’s something to be said for someone who can discover a human turd on the floor and clean it up without protest or surprise. That’s the kind of warrior moms are. I’m just not there yet.  I don’t know if I’ll ever be there. I find turds to be quite alarming.

In the spirit of inclusion, I should note that dads are capable of turd removal as well, but they are not emphasized in this post because I’ve never been to a baby shower that includes men.  And I’ve never known one who has gone through labor and lived to talk about it.

So for lots of reasons, I would prefer to not have to attend showers ever again.  Unless, that is, the nature of the shower changes. Perhaps instead of playing baby-related games and showering someone with presents, we could all go play paintball together.  The expectant mother could hole up in a fort with snacks and her friends could divide up into two teams and play Capture the Expectant Mother. Or everyone could go play laser tag together and to make it fair for the soon-to-be-mom, everyone could wear fake bellies.

Capture the unborn child.

Capture the unborn child.

I’m not really sure why these haven’t already become social sensations.

So I guess I’ll throw it out there.  The next shower I attend should employ these simple suggestions or something in the same spirit. 

Even if I have to wait ’til my own. ♣

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Project 365, Round Two

2 Jan

Well, it appears that I’ve renewed my domain for another year, so here I am on the couch again on a Wednesday night wondering what I have in my head to share.

By now you all know the answer is absolutely nothing.  And I appreciate you sticking around to listen to it.

It’s been exactly 2 years since I wrote my very first post in my very first 365 Challenge: to fire up a blog I once adored and had let sit dormant for years. It was far more successful and fulfilling than I could have imagined and I’ve become an advocate for 365 Projects, much to the irritation of my friends and family.

So it’s a new year and I need a new 365.  I didn’t do one last year; I think I was right to have taken a break.  It was a big challenge and a big payoff.  And I really missed that sense of satisfaction when the ball dropped of knowing I’d spent 365 days working on making one very specific thing about myself better.  I mean, what a waste of a year, right? 

Well not a waste, but you get what I’m going at here.  Last year was good to me.  I got out of a corporate job that was sucking the life from my body and replacing my blood with black sludge.  Instead, I decided to go back to school to get a dual masters, not knowing how exactly that looked or how I would pull it off financially.  I lost twenty pounds and put ten back on (I’m choosing to celebrate the net -10), and I spent more time with my family and friends than I have in a long time.  All in all I’d say that’s a pretty darn good year.

But I’m a monster that can’t be satisfied with mere short-term human achievements.  And let’s face it: if you’re going to force me to keep writing by continuing to read, I’m going to need some subject matter besides awkward elevator conversations, how upset I get when old ladies cut me off when I’m shopping for produce, and my soon-to-be-famous million dollar ideas (if you have money to waste and want to sponsor me, please reference Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C and then wire me the money directly so I can squander it on my inventions).

I was going to tell you something when this all started.  Oh, right.  I’m going to run a 10K.

Oh man I just wrote it.  It’s right there staring at me, all big and 10Kish.

Well I thought about how it felt to finish a 365 the first time and I thought about what thing I could spend 365 days working to improve that would best-affect me in the future.  And that answer is my fat ass.  I shall dub it the Fat Ass 365.  I will spend every single day of this year doing something fitness-related for at least 20 minutes and I will celebrate my success with a 10K.  I already looked up the race.  I have the race.  It’s a go.

I thought I’d invite you all to join me and we could get jackie blog t-shirts and make a team and conquer world hunger or cancer or the dwindling population of honeybees together, but then I realized that if I did that you might actually come and I might have to deal with the anxiety of meeting several completely foreign people and that I might die of a panic attack before I even get to achieve my resolution.

So no, you can’t know which race. You might find me and inadvertently cause my death. That would be a shame.

This is somewhat about the 10K and much more about the fact that I need to seriously incorporate movement into my daily life.  It is a simple fact that I am happiest when stuffing my face with junk food and watching television or playing video games.  This will never change about me.  I mean, I can do other things and try to replace it and even if I’m successful, I’m always going to wish deep down that I could just be in front of a screen stuffing my face and filling myself with disgusting self-deprecation that will breed in my mind and cause my own self-destruction over the course of several years. So this year, in order to help keep that natural adoration at bay, I’m enacting Operation Fat Ass 365.

I remember when I was just knee high to a grasshopper envisioning my 20’s.  Specifically, my late 20’s. I pictured what most lower middle class kids picture: a family and a nice house and great holidays and a job I don’t hate.  Of course then I grew up to be a member of the Boomerang Generation, a bunch of over-educated late bloomers with poor job prospects and an abnormally high sense of cynicism.  So I can’t really have any of those things little Jackie envisioned for herself at the moment (Sorry, little Jackie, but someday you’ll grow up and realize being a kid is all about being stupid and wrong all the time. Deal with it). 

There is, however, one thing I envisioned that I can absolutely do – and that’s be in the best shape of my life.

I mean it’s now or never, right?  I turn 27 this year.  That’s like, 3 years away from 30.  I have to imagine that someday in the near future, kids, self-loathing, and hips twice my size are coming my way and before I give up all hope of ever being the kind of person who can run for 6+miles and/or fit into single-digit clothing, I’d like to give myself a fair shot by forcing myself to face my fat every single day for 365 days.  And then of course running a 10K so I can be sure something tangible came out of it: a certificate and a t-shirt.

There’s no doubt in my mind I’m going to hate it.  But that’s okay because I’ll have lots to write about.  I love to write about things I hate. And eventually I’m going to get sick of running and I’m going to have to do things like take dance classes or go to Zumba (Lord, help me).  And those, my friends, count as Lollipop Tuesdays.

I’m already in the midst of my next one. Tune in Tuesday for the goods.

So that’s what my 2013 looks like: sweaty and disgusting. I hope yours looks fantastic too.  And in all sincerity I hope you consider a 365 Project (it’s not too late!) or at the very least, one single Lollipop Tuesday for yourself.  That way when I cross the finish line we can both celebrate.  

Happy New Year folks; thanks for reading – especially the seven of you who were with me from the start.  You’re all puddings.  Now tell me what your 2013 self challenge is. 

By The Power of Grayskull. ♣

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Caution: Old Age Ahead

28 Nov

There are two times in the year that I am forced to reconcile with my own shortcomings and/or revel in my accomplishments.  The first is my birthday.  It falls in July so it’s a good middle-of-the-year human performance assessment.  The second is the New Year.  Right now.

When I woke up yesterday and realized December is about to punch us all in the face with its jolly, blustery fist, I realized I have one month to right whatever is still wrong from last year’s complaints.  I believe I’ve taken care of everything on the list except “get a passport”, which is crucial to next year’s inevitable goal: “go somewhere”.  In general, it’s a good system for helping me reflect on both my goals and my mistakes so that when I get hit by a truck one day, I have a minimal amount of reflection to do before my soul leaves my body.

It’s just good sense to plan ahead.

Of course, on occasion these little sessions don’t go as hoped and instead of reflecting on improvements for the oncoming year, I focus on how incredibly old I am.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know; statistically speaking, it’s likely that you’re older than me.  I mean I’m old for myself but I’m not old if we consider actual old people.  But even if you’re older than me, you have to admit that there is something that happens to you in your 20’s in which you transition from being young and fun and not responsible for anything to being not young, no fun, and so much responsibility that you wonder if you could just get hospitalized for a little bit to help get you out of a few things.

Except student loans.  No one can stop the student loans.

So the other day I was all wrapped up in my old-ness partially because I’m in reflection mode with January approaching and partly because Dave pointed out that the people playing moms in the Kraft macaroni and cheese commercials are our age now.  And he’s right: they are.  

That’s a painful realization, my friends.  

And that’s the humiliation of growing up I suppose – how it creeps up on you.  The way that it just slowly invades all your sacred space until one day you wake up and you’re upset that so many young kids are moving in and making a ruckus in your apartment complex or that you actually really like Raisin Bran or that you can’t go join a hippie commune any time you want now because you have bills, man.

Perhaps I should add “come to terms with own age” to my list of to-dos for 2013.   Hey, at least if I fail I can hop a flight to another country and ignore everything with my newly acquired passport.

How about you all? How are your resolutions and reflections faring with only one month to go?  

Feel free to tell me that you also enjoy Raisin Bran. It would help me, you know, deal. ♣

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Dear Boomerang Kids Everywhere:

5 Sep

Today, I met an interesting woman at a bus stop.  Let’s call her Margie.

Normally, I don’t talk to Margies.  I don’t talk to anyone, really, especially not people at bus stops.  But Margie didn’t really care who I was or how I felt.  She was a jolly lass and it didn’t occur to her that I could be introverted so she just blabbered on and on about her day.  And since I was having a particularly poopy one myself, I kind of didn’t mind the break from my inner monologue.

Margie is a social worker who has been laid off three times due to budget cuts.  She spends her day dealing with women in crisis and juveniles in court.  She makes about 25K a year and though her daughter makes more than twice that, her daughter is living at home.  And not paying any bills.  And using Margie’s car, which was why Margie was at the bus stop at that particular moment.

So this is a post for Margie.  In fact, it’s for all the Margies out there who find themselves so blinded by their love for their children that they just can’t bear to tell them to get the hell out of the house.  If you’re  a Margie, have no fear.  Just copy the web address in your browser right now, paste it into an email or text, and shoot it off to your lovable little mooch.  Of course, there are some kids who are experiencing some technical difficulties in their lives and have extenuating circumstances.  This isn’t for those.  This is for the kids who are fully capable of formulating a plan for adulthood and are putting it off in exchange for the convenience of feeding off their parents.  Those kids.  So look around your house.  Do you have any of those lingering around?  If so, send them this web address, tell them you like my blog, that they should follow it, and that you’ve been doing some thinking and maybe they should also get the hell out of the house.  Follow it with “lol jk” and then “but seriously, read this”.

Dear Margie’s Daughter and Boomerang Kids Everywhere:
Look at your parental figure/s.  Don’t they look tired?  That’s because they are.  They’re old and tired because for the last two and a half decades or so, they’ve weaned you from a squealing, helpless piglet into a walking, talking, thinking human being.  They paid taxes so you could go to school and gave you rides when you needed to go see your stupid significant other or when you wanted to go to a dance or do some other waste of an adolescent pastime.   They went to work every day so that they could go to the store after work, fight off hordes of other parents just like them, buy dinner, come home, and cook it for you so that you could just gobble it up in 5 minutes, not leave any leftovers, and then leave the table without offering to help clean up so that you could return to some stupid aforementioned adolescent pastime.  They’re tired because once you learned to drive, you’d borrow the car and leave it on empty so that they had to wake up extra early to put gas in it before they went to work, where they got more money to afford the gas they put in the car for you to run out.
So listen: they did their part.  You can walk on two feet instead of four, you can poop in a toilet instead of your pants, and you can (God willing) at least sustain yourself with boxed meals from the supermarket instead of skinning small vermin in the wilderness for daily sustenance.  Now it’s your turn.  You’re a big kid now.  And it’s time to move out.
It is.  It really is.  You were really only supposed to be an eighteen-year commitment.  Then you were supposed to get a job and/or go to college, never to return again.  But you did return.  And you aren’t using any of your life skills to better the household.  You’re using your money to participate in your stupid mid-20’s pastimes instead of donating it to the greater good of the unit.  You shower, you plug things in, you put things in your mouth, and you flush things down the toilet.  That all costs money, and it’s time to pay up.  Don’t have a job?  Get one.  Even a terrible one.  
Hey, sometimes you have to work sucky jobs.  Lots of people have sucky jobs.  You know what really sucks, though? Having a sucky job and not even having any money to show for it because your kid won’t move out of the damn house.  So get a job and get out.
While you’re writing a big fat check to your parents for all the years they’ve sheltered and fed you past the eighteen-year contract, remember to clean up after yourself.  For the love of all that is holy, take a shower.  Do some dishes.  Inspire your parents to soil their pants by offering to make dinner or take them out.  Ask if you can go pick up some groceries for them or go fill up the gas tank, or do some laundry.   
And once you’ve gotten a job, given your parents some money to offset the cost of your existence, cleaned up the room where you wove your cocoon, and landed an apartment, begin your mass exodus with a hug and a thank you to your old, tired, parent/s.  Because  every year you spent in their home past the eighteen-year-contract was a year of their life they can’t get back.  And the Bible tells us that there’s no greater gift than to lay down your life for another.
Look at that: no greater gift.  Jesus says so.  You can’t ever repay your parental unit/s for this time you’ve taken from them.  So just be a good little lamb and hit the road.  Now.  Hey- look at that: you’re already online.  Just click here.  
Good job.  Now print out three options, show them to your parental unit/s and take a shower while they celebrate with a bottle of wine that you purchase for them.  Trust me: you’re doing the right thing.  And in a few decades, you can return to this page, send it to your own little lovable mooches and get your own free bottle of wine and a ticket to your golden years.
You’re welcome.
Puppies and Sprinkles,
Jackie ♣

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The Day the Music Died

15 Aug

20120815-224750.jpg

Tonight I fired up my laptop to be greeted by 7 distinct, loud beeps. Beeps of certain death. Beeps of destruction. Beeps of inescapable doom.

It has passed on.

Well technically it may not have passed on. Using my handy
dandy phone, from which I’m currently posting (thanks WordPress wizards!), I discovered that when the screen is unable to display its beauty to you, your computer will communicate error codes through sound and lights. You will then have to use another computer to decode this alien language and attempt repairs. Seven beeps on my beloved laptop means processor failure. Supposedly, I may be able to replace this. Supposedly.

If I can sell my body enough times to pay for it.

Apparently my computer doesn’t care that I have all the notes for the show I’m currently directing on it. It doesn’t care that I owe people things this week. It doesn’t care that I’m just a poor, lone blogger in need of a full size screen and a real physical keyboard to get me through my life and musings.

It’s an asshole.

So I’m in a bit of a pickle. I’m afraid I may have brought this on myself. Perhaps I spoke too loudly this evening about how I couldn’t think of anything to write. Yes – perhaps my laptop does really care and in fact loves me so much that it has given the greatest form of sacrifice: its life.

No but seriously: this is a problem. I’m doing things. Important things. Even if I lost my files but still had a computer I could at least recover after long hours of labor. But we don’t have another computer. Dave’s laptop went the way of the dodo long ago and we don’t keep a desktop in the house because of my addiction.

For those of you unfamiliar, I am a reformed World of Warcraft addict. I relapsed once and thereafter procured a laptop that is incapable of supporting the game so that if I ever relapsed again I would have to justify the purchase of an entirely new computer. So far, this method has kept me clean. It’s been a long while since I’ve sat in my Mr. Bubble pajama pants, 5 days unshowered, gnawing on leftover pizza that I kept under my bed so I wouldn’t have to go downstairs to the refrigerator.

But being that I am unable to continue with my life as it currently stands without procuring a new processor or a new computer, I am in serious danger of relapse. After all, once I start selling my body for here money to replace it and I’ve been fired from all my gigs for failure to meet deadlines and all my job opportunities go out the window because I’m unable to properly respond, I will have nothing in my life worth looking forward to except trekking through the world of Azeroth again. And I’ll have all that dirty money from prostitution to help me procure a new desktop to go back there.

There, people respect me. I accomplish things. My life doesn’t ever come to a screaming vault because an inanimate object fails to perform its innate duties. My character and inventory and life is all waiting there for me just as I left it. Glorious and untouched.

So this could be it, folks. This is the end of my productivity, my slight bit of a checking account, and life as I know it. I am dead to the world. Should I awaken, it may be in the World of Warcraft.

Peace be with you all. It’s been a swell run.*

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Everyone Please Stop Getting Married and Having Babies

1 Aug

I envisioned a lot of things for my twenties.  I pictured myself being a super cool adult.  I somehow thought that paying my own bills would be awesome.  I imagined I’d be in the best shape of my life.

These things haven’t exactly come to fruition.

You know what I hadn’t imagined?  Everyone I know getting married and having babies all at once.  …Or the invention of Facebook.  

I am constantly bombarded with announcements of love and adoration and procreation.   Which is lovely, in a way.  The Book of Faces has ensured that when I run into someone I haven’t seen since we shared Algebra class, my jaw doesn’t drop to the floor at the size of their stomach.  Or the train of munchkins behind them.  Or the size of their ring.  And since my face tends to immediately barf my thoughts, this has been a source of great salvation.

As happy as I am for all these folks and their hitch-getting and their baby-making, my wallet is getting seriously ravaged.  

Of course I’m glad for them.  Really, it’s a lovely milestone in their lives.  It’s just unfortunate that their milestones cost me so much of my hard-earned American dollars.  Do you realize how many days I have to sit at a desk typing to pay off just one friend’s marriage?! Too many, folks.  Far too many. 

I’ve gotta take off work.  I’ve gotta get a hotel.   I’ve gotta get an outfit.  I’ve gotta pay for gas.  I’ve gotta get a gift.  I’ve gotta hold my empty wallet in my hand as I cry in the hotel shower.

We need to get a handle on this.  My Facebook news feed is blowing up with pictures of fingers sporting rings and pictures of babies still in the womb (which is a post in itself,  mind you).  Every status update is a hit to my bank account and a day of my life spoken for.  We all hit the 20’s at the same time and we’re all racing to avoid a life of cat-filled spinsterdom. I get it.  I fully support it.  I just wish I didn’t have to pay for it. With the number of wedding gifts and baby shower sprinkles I’ve purchased, I could have backpacked through Europe by now.  

Maybe we should just all agree to not get each other anything.  I’m pretty sure we’re all just throwing the same money around and around anyway.  With so many invitations in a year, I can’t even attend them all.  And while that should mean that I save money, social etiquette dictates that if I opt not to attend, the pressure to purchase a gift is only heightened.  That doesn’t even make any sense.  

So I have a proposal of my own; let’s stop buying each other crap.  Let’s just save our money to buy ourselves the things on our registry instead of asking other people to buy those things.  Doesn’t that make lots of sense?  Then again, the gift is the cheapest portion of the wedding excursions.  Its the driving and the hotel-staying that does me in.  Maybe everyone can just get married in a closer proximity to me.  Or maybe everyone can get married at free camping grounds.  Or just revert to immediate family only. That’s probably best.  Let’s do that.

Except start after I get married – because I’ve already invested in folks and I want that money back y’all. ♣

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Jackie the Housewife

25 Jul

This is our fridge magnet. True story.

Today Dave suggested that we move the cat food bowls around the house every once in a while so that we can force them to scavenge for food and thereby “prepare them for the oncoming apocalypse”.

I complied.  I didn’t really have a choice; he was very serious about it.  It felt like a dealbreaker.  And I really don’t want to be the girl that he left because she wouldn’t get over a little Apocalypse Training for the cats.  However, I’m also a little worried that now that I’ve opened the door to the beginning stages of this, he’ll start to get even more serious about their training program. 

First it’s hiding food dishes around the house, next it’s cats knifing me when I come home from work. 

Maybe I don’t have anything to worry about though – I tried to rouse Hobbes with the laser pointer today and he gave me the finger.   I don’t think even the fear of the apocalypse could get him to stop sleeping in the tub all day.  I’ve been meaning to talk to him about his attitude lately.

Anyway, I’m off work this week and I’m trying to spend some of the time teaching the cats  a lesson in productivity.  The theme of my workshop is that just because you’re not employed, doesn’t mean you can’t contribute.  I’m demonstrating a myriad of behaviors I’m hoping they’ll mimic in my absence when I go back to work.   Today, for example, I cleaned the house and did the dishes and made cookies and deviled eggs. 

What I wouldn’t give to have my cat hand me a deviled egg when I get home instead of knifing me. 

They aren’t really taking to my demonstrations, but I’m hoping that soon my messages will get through. I’m like the Jane Goodall of cats.  They’ll come around.

As it turns out I really like being home, aside from Hobbes’ foul behavior.  I really don’t mind dropping things off to be dry cleaned or getting the cats appointments (health pre-screenings for the training), or putting together furniture, cleaning the house, and making dinner.  I think I might really be cut out for this domestic thing.  Hell, I’d start a garden if I had a lawn.

It makes sense, I guess – I’ve always preferred staying indoors in the evening; now that I can be indoors in the morning too, I’m at my peak. It’s only been three days and Dave’s got this look in his eye like he’s afraid I’ve taken to it so much that will never return to work again.   And that could be entirely possible because I feel fantastic.  So to help him agree that it’s a good idea, I’m making him delicious dinners and keeping him from lifting a finger around the apartment.   I think if I can fit in a puppy and a garden, I’ve got myself a good hard sell.

It’s so wonderful to be able to get things done that have been on the back burner forever as low-priority items.  After a while, those things nag at me for so long that they become part of the baggage I carry around all the time.  And this week has been dedicated to ticking those off the list one by one.   I am infinite.

I started to feel so great this week that I realized I should be spending this time doing *all* the things I’ve ever wanted to do and recalled my curiosity for hiking the Appalachian Trail.  Then I remembered that I still have rehearsal at night and every weekend until November is booked (Note to self: add Appalachian Trail to back burner.  Also Note to self: why are you always so busy?).

I also have quite a bit of Lollipop Tuesday hunting to do, as it’s been quite some time since I’ve tried some newfangled adventure.  I’m afraid it’s been so long that if I don’t do one soon I’ll revert back into a cranky old coot.   Of course, finding new ventures is difficult when I get to be home all day in heels and a housedress, showing Dave how good of an idea it is for me to not work. 

Perhaps tomorrow my only goal should be to go outside.  It will hurt, but it will be good for me.  I’ll report back next week.  

Pray for me out there.  I hear the Apocalypse is coming. ♣

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Therapeutic Cat-Washing

27 Jun

Yesterday I was so upset at the world that I washed my cat.

I think it had something to do with working a ten hour day and having my boss call me the moment I left the office.  Twice in a row.  And then text me seven times.  Right in a row.

There is something about the beeping that my phone makes upon a new text delivery that I am unable to check that feels like a hamster is nibbling at my insides.  When I know it’s my boss and I’m behind the wheel and helpless to know what the emergency is that inspires her to plague me so, that hamster gets upgraded to a gerbil.  And by the time I got to the grocery store, called her, handled said emergency, drove home, unpacked everything, changed my clothes, and saw that the house was a mess beyond livability, I would have had a more relaxing evening had I just set myself on fire and run out of my office building before it all started.

But I didn’t.  So instead, I took my cat for a walk.

Hobbes is an interesting creature of habit.  Once upon a time, Dave had a pang of guilt about man’s domestication of felines and their tendency to remove their manhood once domesticated.  And so to give Hobbes a taste of loveliness, he took him to the park, where I sang him a lively rendition of “A Whole New World”.   Ever since, when Dave gets home from work, Hobbes paws and meows at the front door until we either let him out or shoot him.

We don’t have a gun.

So since I was at my wit’s end and wanted a breath of fresh air anyway, I decided to kill two cats with one walk and bring Hobbes into the great wide open.  He doesn’t require a leash because all he does is roll around on the concrete like he’s on ecstasy and the concrete is neon silk.  The neighbors tend to stare.

And while Hobbes was relishing the highlights of neon and softness in the sidewalk, I sat beside him stewing about all the work I had to do that evening and how I really just wanted to play video games and eat cookies.   I imagined the carpet that needed to be vacuumed several days ago and the cat litter that I just scooped this morning that already needed to be scooped and the dusting, dishwashing, counter-cleaning and general exhaustion that was about to ensue.  It burned like a fiery pit of filth in my stomach, right beside the once-gnawing gerbil.

That’s when Hobbes’ ecstasy binge led him to a soft pile of dirt and he began to roll in a frenzy, overtaken by the spirit of a chinchilla.

He rolled and rolled.  I’d venture to say it was the happiest moment of his life to date.  It may have even made up for the fact that his ancestors had been torn from the tundra and domesticated into prissy little eunuchs.  

But I was not happy.  My mind was chock full of filthy things needing to be cleaned and even if I did every single one of them, my E-crazed chinchilla was just going to deposit a sack of black dust all over my living room anyway.  And since I had nothing inanimate near me on which to take out my sometimes compulsive cleaning habit, I instead grabbed the offender by the scruff of his neck and the tub of his tummy and carted him to the bathroom.

I think this is where I did the most harm.  Hobbes loves the bathroom.  He loves the sink and the tub and the perfectly Hobbes-sized carpet I apparently bought for him.  He loves the shower curtain and the occasional drip from the tub’s faucet.  He lives like a king in that sacred room.  But he doesn’t like water.  I know this because when, in my fury, I splattered the water all over his dirty behind, his eyes turned to saucers, his tail went stick straight, and he engaged every fiber of his being into actively escaping the porcelain death trap I had set for him.

But I’m a human.  And humans trump cats.  Hence the domesticated nutsack-stealing.

I rinsed about a half pound of black dust and dander down my tub before I started to worry I’d genuinely give him a heart attack so I turned off the water and convinced myself he was clean enough. I smothered him in a towel and then made a note to do a load of laundry because I had just used my last clean towel on my cat.

Freshly toweled cats are hilarious, angry little things.  I highly recommend it on a rough day.

I followed up the traumatic session with a gentle brushing, which was actually in my favor more than his but he’s too stupid to know the difference between a proper petting and a wire brush.  Another point for the humans.  I then nursed the wounds he’d inflicted that, due to my nerdy cat allergies, had swollen to look like boils all over my skin.  Point for the cats.

But I felt better.  I had cleaned something.  Not just that – I had cleaned something that fought back – and I had won.  I mean, I tend to take out my stress on my dirty apartment from time to time, but that’s just a hurricane of cleaning that ends in my sweat and tears.  This! This was fantastic.  Five minutes of cat cleaning and I’m good to go.  I can dust a little, vacuum a little, pick up a few cups and be done.  The filthiest thing in my apartment had already been conquered and it was now so upset at the violation that it was cleaning itself. Perfection.

Therapeutic Cat-washing, folks: I highly recommend it. ♣

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My Declaration of Laziness

6 Jun

I’m in one of those modes again where I don’t feel like doing anything.

Well, I should be more specific.  

I feel like doing lots of things.  I feel like playing video games, eating junk food, taking lots of naps, buying things online that I may not even use in the next three months, and holding long conversations with my cats.  I’m also farting more than usual.  I don’t know what that’s about.   And I’m doing all of these things – while avoiding the absolutely monstrous and ever-growing to do list.

All the things on my to do list are “adult” things.  And adult things are icky.

Adult things like dishes, not adult things like porn.  

Anyway I have a lot of things to do and instead of paying them any mind, I am wrapping myself in cozy blankets when I come home from work and talking to my cats until I pass out with my hand still lodged in a bag of generic cheesy poofs.  I’m finding it difficult to get on top of things with this ritual.  Perhaps I should explain how I got here.

You see, several weeks ago I had reached a sort of Jackie Critical Mass.  Every day I was pelted with some new and hugely stressful thing and though I’m usually really good in those sort of scenarios, I really just couldn’t catch a break.  And I sort of went to the hospital with stroke-like symptoms.

Don’t freak out.   I know I don’t usually talk about anything but video games, Lollipop Tuesdays, cats, and social awkwardness, so you might feel somewhat uncomfortable right now.   If so, go up and read the part about my cats again, who have been mentioned twice in less than 300 words.  Breathe.  Come back when you’re ready.

Anyway, I didn’t have a stroke.  They ran lots of tests and took lots of blood and affirmed that I had a severe case of Stressed-the-Hell-Out.  I guess that isn’t the technical term for it but it should be.  After much arguing and a lot of harassment, I took time off from work to try to mellow out and not die.  I know it seems like a great excuse to get out of work, but I don’t often go to the doctor and when I do, I don’t often believe them.  Not going to work because I’m ‘overly stressed’ sounds pretty stupid to me.  Besides, if I have to use vacation time, I want to use it to go places and do things.  I don’t want to spend it sitting around.  So I tried to come in to work the following day but was instantly sent home because apparently they were serious when they told me not to come in.  I returned to my humble abode and spent most of it cleaning my apartment and catching up on all the things I was too busy to be able to do while I was at work.    

After two days of that, Dave whipped me into submission and I was forced to coddle myself.  I painted my toenails, I played video games, I browsed Pinterest; I was a waste of human flesh.  I actively said no to extra responsibilities, unwanted tasks, and things I usually do out of obligation.  I kept wading through the to do list and pushed everything off my figurative plate until it was squeaky clean and I could hear myself think again.

And that’s where I stayed.  For the past several weeks I’ve just been hovering in a state of aggressive relaxation.   It took a really long time to get here and now that I’ve practice saying no to lots of things and have taken such a liking to it that I fear I may never contribute to society again.  Every day I wake up a few minutes later, every day I convince myself a little more that I shouldn’t go in to work ever again, and every day I’m more at risk for showing up at the desk of a social worker, unwashed and jobless – babbling something about the day everything changed.  

Me. Totally gross. You know, it took me forever to find a larva picture that wasn’t on the move. Apparently they get around. Very mobile, larva. I felt that would be an inaccurate representation of my current state and opted to find a larva curled upon itself; a non-contributor.

I suppose I’ve been in denial for a bit so we can go ahead and call this very public admission of guilt the second step to recovery: I have milked my relaxation far too long and am now simply a lazy, non-contributor of a human being.

Okay, there it is.  I wrote it loud and proud.  That counts as acceptance.  I have to talk myself through this because as far as I know, there are no Lazy Slugs Anonymous groups in my area.  That, and in my state of perpetual do-nothingness, I had no contributions for today’s post and was forced to write the truth.

Now it’s time to get back on the trolley.  I’m pretty sure if I don’t get any sleep until Sunday, I can clear out the massive amount of junk that has acquired during my hiatus.  That’s probably a good way to have a stroke though.  Maybe I’ll just take it one step at a time.  Getting my hand out of the bag of cheesy poofs to write this blog post was a good first one.

And hey: for the last several weeks I’ve been posting my weekly post at the end of the day it is due instead of the beginning (how nice of you all to not mention anything).  But looky there: today I’m bright and early!

Maybe the winds are changing.  

This is Larva, signing off. ♣

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