iTunes has betrayed me:

John C. Mayer Totally Hates Me.

Imagine my horror when I pulled up iTunes to download Tom Jones songs for Vegas this weekend (you ARE coming, yes?)(the answer is, of course, obviously) and iTunes told the WHOLE WORLD, or at least, my living room, that I owned some John C. Mayer songs.

I mean, how can I OWN HIS MUSIC after the shit I’ve talked about him? After our “Pulling A John C. Mayer” prank, I’m still number two and three for searches for John C. Mayer:

It goes to show that you really cannot trust everything you read on the internet. Hell, I might be a tiny, tiny man living in my parents basement playing Dungeons and Dragons all day and NOT ACTUALLY Your Aunt Becky. You just never know.

Unless you’re iTunes. Or Jimmy Motherfucking Wales. Then you pretty much know everything.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I am 15 weeks pregnant and have never felt more confused, stressed out and alone. I have been married not even a year and have a six year old stepson whom I have been a full-time mommy to him for in the nearly three years I have known the both of them. The problem is, my husband has serious trust and paranoia issues, which has really taken a toll on our relationship. He is always mad at me for one thing or another, usually something that is just made up in his head. He even says he does not trust me and he has called me a selfish bitch on numerous occasions.

Because of his issues, I do not have any friends and feel hesitant to talk to anybody anymore, let alone my husband. Since he is always upset with me about something, my pregnancy has been nothing but stressful. I am afraid that his anger, which he blames on me, is going to seriously affect my body and our baby. I love him and when he is happy with me he is the most loving, awesome man in the world. He has a lot of past issues ( his ex-wife cheated on him) and he keeps blaming me for things when I haven’t done anything wrong. I think I am a good person but when he gets like this (which is all the time) I just feel like I want this baby out of my body. I get really depressed. Especially last week when he went so far as to pack up his and his son’s bags and leave me.

I really want this marriage to work out for the sake of his (our) son and our unborn child. He refuses to get help for his issues and I just want to crawl in a hole and die some days. My body cannot take much more. I am afraid the stress is going to make me miscarriage. I have no friends and have never felt more alone. I just want my husband to be happy with me again. I love him so much and would do anything for him.

Sincerely,
Pregnant and Hurting

P.S. – Thanks for your blog. It has really helped me through this.

Dear Pregnant and Hurting,

If only I could reach through the computer and give you a big squishy hug. I’m so sorry, Prankster. Now I’m not going to presume to tell you what to do with your life, but I am going to tell you that you do not have to live like this any longer.

I’ve spent much of my life on edge, afraid convinced that someone in my household was Furious George with me, and it’s been an incredibly stressful thing to overcome. Being raised that way (no matter how unintentional), it’s taken a long time to not revert right back to that feeling of being on constant edge from “someone” being mad at me. That’s how living with someone with a serious mental illness is. These are some of the long-term effects.

I suffered terribly from antenatal depression (depression during pregnancy) in at least some part from the stress of my life. It’s a very real thing. It’s not because I’m a bad person or because I didn’t love my child or because I was a bad mother. Antenatal depression just...is. But that doesn’t mean that antenatal depression needs to be in control of you.

You need to seek some treatment for yourself and your baby. There are many kinds of antenatal depression treatments – some that don’t involve medicine – that can really help you through the worst of it. It’s not going to fix everything in your life, but knowing that you have an ally can help tremendously. This is the link to antenatal depression resources on Band Back Together. Here’s (my friend) Katherine Stone’s Postpartum Progress; also an amazing resource.

I’m telling you with all of my conviction that you need help of some kind. I wish I’d sought help sooner. I wish I’d told people how much I was hurting. I even knew I had antenatal depression and still thought I didn’t need anyone. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t remember pregnancy as the single worst part of my life (parenting, even on it’s worst days, is so much better). Talk to someone. Write down how you feel. We’d love to have you at Band Back Together. Reach out to people.

I know that all of these things may sound impossible, but you can do it. You’re worth it. So is your baby.

As for your marital situation, I only want what’s best for you and your baby. Your husband’s trust issues are not your fault. You cannot fix someone else. You cannot take responsibility for his emotions or his actions. I know how much it hurts and I know how isolating it is to feel so alone all of the time, believe me, Prankster, I do, but you’re not alone.

We’re none of us alone. Please get some help. You’re worth more than feeling like this all of the time.

We love you and we know you can make it. You’re going to come out the other side and know that you can kick any problem square in the nuts. It just doesn’t feel like it right now.

In the meantime, we’ll be anxious to hear how things are going.

Much love,

AB

—————

Pranksters, please help me out here. But whatever you do, remember that “just leave him” or other guilt-inducing statements (“think of the children!!!!!!!”) may make her feel worse. It’s just never that simple.

I was warned that the recovery from the abdominoplasty would be hard. The pain, I expected. I didn’t expect it to be so long, so omnipresent and I didn’t expect that I’d frequently say, “holy fuck, I miss my abdominal muscles.”

But when my surgeon suggested that I might have some postpartum depression-ish feelings during my recovery, I sort of dismissed it. Not that I hadn’t had postpartum depression (hell, I’d had antenatal depression, that’s depression DURING pregnancy), just that it hadn’t been the sort of surgery that I’d been building up in my head for MONTHS or anything.

I kept the possibility in the back of my mind.

And after three weeks on the couch, I realized that I was getting pretty depressed. I don’t sit around well. I’m a terrible patient. I hadn’t expected the recovery to take so long. I ran out of help and couldn’t bring myself to ask for more. I was in pain all of the time. And furthermore, I just didn’t feel very good.

When I don’t feel very well, I get sensitive. When I get sensitive, I don’t feel like writing. When I don’t feel like writing, I get depressed.

For the first time in my incredibly mediocre blogging “career*” I felt stifled. After a couple semi-personal attacks, I simply didn’t feel like writing on my blog. I was tired of feeling like I had to defend my life.

I think therein lies the crux of blogging: we write about ourselves and our lives and that’s what brings people in. But sometimes, when we spill our secrets and expose our underbelly, it’s almost impossible not to open ourselves up to an attack. When they happen, what then? Knowing you have a legion of people out there rooting for you to fail, how do you continue?

I’ve been thinking about that all week.

It’s made me really sad, too, because I love what I do. I’ll never achieve fame and fortune, but I do have a Band of Merry Pranksters who (mostly) understand me and that’s always been more than enough. Telling stories, making people laugh, making people cry, stringing all of my words into sentences that flow into paragraphs; telling stories, that is what I do. Without it, I don’t know who I am.

So there is my answer. I will keep doing what I do because that is what I do. I’m not about to let anybody stop me from doing what I love. When I stop blogging, it’ll be because I choose to stop, not because I feel frustrated or full of the sads.

My life isn’t on trial here. It’s not open for debate.

And moreover, I’m nobody’s bitch.

*career is used VERY loosely** here.

**after seeing “loose” misused as “lose” for so long, it looks bizarre now.

Probably the best part of not hosting Thanksgiving besides the obvious “not cooking” and “not having to behave like Martha fucking Stewart” is I don’t actually give a shit if my children eat Thanksgiving food. I mean, I didn’t spend 70 hours slaving over anything, so if you want to eat corn only, be my guest, I’m not crawling up on the cross today.

Traveling to my rival state (Wisconsin) is always a downside because we have to drive behind slow (SLOW!) drivers and listen to the ear-splitting shrieks of my daughter, who was all Furious George. Small children do not travel well. Hm. Let me rephrase that: MY small children do not travel well.

Happy Holidays! We’re all deaf!

After we got home from our uneaten Thanksgiving dinner in Wisconsin, my friend came over. My INTERNET friend.

Pranksters, I have friends. ME. I know!

My feelers have been a little lonesome lately and I was all SAD IN THE PANTS that I was supposed to be alone on Thanksgiving (Wisconsin was a last-minute thing), and my friend Dana was all, “I’LL COME OVER, YO.” And I was all, “AWWW YEAH. MY HOUSE IS BRIGHT YELLOW AND I’M NOT A SERIAL KILLER I SWEAR DON’T MIND THE GIGANTIC FREEZER IN THE GARAGE IT’S NOT FOR YOUR CORPSE.”

She came over anyway.

And she brought a bacon turkey.

I pretty much have the best friends ever.

She’s totally not stuffed into my big freezer, either because even though I am married to a television serial killer, I am not personally a serial killer.

I’m going to have to use her as a reference on my Internet Resume.

Also: The Blogroll is back, yo.

So, because I am lazy and unconcerned about facts, I often use Wikipedia when looking for such information as “How do you build a nuclear reactor?” and “What is my middle name?” Occasionally, I’ll use Wikipedia to make me laugh because, well, obviously. Once, they called my town, St. Charles (IL, not MO) “the land of the drunks” and once they quoted Brian “I Hate The North Shore” Parkins as saying, “I hate the North Shore.”

If I had screen shots, it would be better.

Anyway, Wikipedia is fine and I’m still all EYE OF THE MOTHERFUCKING TIGER about beating Wikipedia’s entry for John C. Mayer.

But the last time I was searching Wikipedia for “why are oranges called orange?” I had this horrible, awful thing happen to me. It was so bad that I had to lay down and shake like a purse dog (if I were on Wikipedia, I’d know what they were called) until I could get up again.

Why was I so afraid?

JIMMY MOTHERFUCKING WALES.

JIMMY MOTHERFUCKING WALES

PRANKSTERS, JIMMY MOTHERFUCKING WALES WAS STARING AT ME.

I’ve never been so afraid of the internet before. Look at his scary creepy eyes!

It’s like he’s one of those old time paintings from a haunted mansion and his eyes follow you EVERYWHERE.

Those eyes are JUDGING what you’re LOOKING UP. Jimmy Motherfucking WALES was JUDGING my Wikipedia searches. I knew it! I knew he was judging me! HOW DARE HE JUDGE ME WHEN HE PUT UP SUCH A HORRIBLE GUILT-RIDDEN “PERSONAL APPEAL?”

Jimmy Motherfucking Wales wants my MONEY or he’s going to creep me out half-to-death.

I did the only logical thing. I took to Twitter, horribly butchered his name and called him out on his creepy funhouse eyes.

TODAY JIMMY MOTHERFUCKING WALES IS GONE. VANISHED. POOF!

NOT JIMMY MOTHERFUCKING WALES.

This can mean only one thing, Pranksters:

We killed Jimmy Wales…

…and his creepy funhouse eyes.

Operating on about 3 hours of sleep combined, my husband of 40 hours sat across from me shoe-less, his shirt up around his pasty nipples while another man rubbed him up and down. While an awkward woman rubbed my butt and patted down my vagina, our eyes met. Without attracting any more attention, I mouthed “I’m sorry.” His eyes smiled right before the man grazed his balls with his elbow. Then he wasn’t smiling anymore.

It was all my fault. Honestly.

Later, he expressed, several screwdrivers to the wind, that this was his first experience with being singled out and searched by airport security.

Mouth full of egg and cheese biscuit and several screwdrivers drunk myself, I slurred, “Well, dude, at least they didn’t take you to that back room.” I took a long drag off my drink, “Because that shit is WHACK.” I paused. “And hey, they let me keep one of my lighters.”

The Daver looked less than pleased.

“I’m sorry,” I said, chastised. “It’s all my fault.”

But was it? Was the issue with having a face (presumably) like a terrorist my fault? Certainly I’d been stopped by customs and security more times than I could possibly count, singled out from a crowd each and every time I flew since I was a small child. My father and brother, who turn equally brown-skinned in the sun, get it also, but not as badly as I do.

I can’t put a toe into an airport without securing a nice frisking and potential strip-search.

While I can easily claim that I *am* an asshole, the moment I hit the airport, I turn into the idiot sister from Hee-Haw. I’m all “Golly Gee,” this and “Jeepers, Mister,” that with a side of “Gee wilikers” thrown in for good measure. You’ll never see a more ridiculously PC, G-rated version of me.

And still. And yet. And how.

I’ve learned to show up to the airport extra EXTRA early. I’ve learned that flip-flops–even in the dead of winter in Chicago–are the footwear of champions, and I know to wear loose baggy pants for easy up and down access.

But this begs the question. Why me? Was I marked as a potential terrorist when I was a baby? Is this on my ever-fucking Permanent Record?

I’m going to Vegas in two weeks at the ass-crack of dawn and I’m certain that on each leg of the trip, I will be searched up and down, and God forbid I pack the wrong toothpaste or something, because I am hoping to make it to my destination.

With the new regulations, though, it’s likely I’ll have to have The Sex with the TSA to make my flights. Maybe I’ll walk.

Vegas or bust, baby.

What holiday would be complete without a discussion of my colon?

THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS: NONE.

Somewhere along my Mars Cheese Castled Journey (I’m thinking we Midwestern Bloggers need to field trip it up there, yo. It’s a CASTLE of motherhumping CHEESE) to Wisconsin, I seemed to have picked up a Ghost in my Colon, which effectively means that I’ve been crapping out the lining of my digestive tract for the past 12 hours. It’s pretty rad.

But this weekend has been FULL of awesome post ideas and excellent happenings. Most full of the awesome is that The Daver completed the new navigation for Band Back Together:

Full of The Awesome PICTURE Navigation

This matters to a whole three of you, but this means that you can simply click a picture and it will take you to the page with all of the subcategories. You can access it from the main page or the browse posts option at the top of the site.

ALSO, and probably most importantly, there’s a READ ALL POSTS option at the top of the screen on Band Back Together, too. Like any normal blog feed, it’ll take you to the most recent posts. Sweet ass in the mornin’! Just not *ahem* MY sweet ass. Not today.

Anyway.

ONTO THE DISPATCHES.

The moment my son saw his sister get dressed up for Thanksgiving, he wanted to bring his, you guessed it, AWESOME COSTUME. Who could blame him? I’m still stuck wearing happy pants and my binder. I’d totally have worn a butterfly costume if I could have.

And next year, he wants to be SATURN. The planet, not the car. I think I need to start searching for that costume, uh, NOW.

Thanksgiving Flutterby

While my son fluttered, his sister made my ovaries melt with her Hello Kitty dress. This was one of the first things I bought for her when she was a wee fetus and when she saw it, she was all, “KITTTTTYYYYY!” because she loves Hello Kitty. Just like her momma.

In this picture, it appears as though she is plotting world domination. She probably is. Just like her momma.

Hello, Kitty!

I have a third son but no Thanksgiving picture of him because he was staring gape-jawed at the television and all of the pictures made him look like he may have been catching flies rather than watching the game.

This is my first family portrait and proof that I am an artistic genius. I think I must’ve drawn this when I was 12 or maybe 20.

The picture is only funny when you notice one thing…

SMILE!

Look at the smiles on my mom and I. Then look at the smiles on my brother and my father. Could they LOOK any meaner?

HILARIOUS.

And this is only the best thing ever:

Notice, it does NOT say, “Aunt Becky, Mediocre Blogger.” Ah, how the (not-so) mighty have fallen.

—————–

How was your holiday, Pranksters?

Got some bad news from the Anonymous Asker:

Y’all, I need prayers. At the preliminary custody hearing they gave custody to my husband based on the lies he and his daughter told on the stand. I am heartbroken and I don’t know what to do.
Please pray for my son’s safety.
Crying real tears,
The Anonymous Asker

Dear Aunt Becky,

I tried to write this email a couple times and realized I keep including a thousand skank details that don’t matter.

How do you pick between two men who are polar opposites?

What if you’re made a pro/con list cause you’re that kind of person and Guy A makes more sense but your gut tells you Guy B and you CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHY?!

What if you can’t figure out how to break up with Guy B because his crazy ex-wife cheated on him and now he’s super super wrapped up in you and it would sort of devastate him (even though you feel conceited saying that, even anonymously-ish)?

What if you even feel silly writing this email because it makes you feel like a shallow, stupid high school girl?

Even if you don’t put this up with Go Ask Aunt Becky, I would really like to know what you think  Even it’s a smack down of what an idiot I am.  I don’t think my friends would tell me that, which is why they’re my friends, but I’m fairly confident you would.

– I can’t even come up with a moniker for this crap.

Prankster, while your dilemma is serious, your email had me laughing my ass off. I think I would very much like to be friends with you because you have the ability to crack me up even when I’m all Campaign of Doom on Anthropologie because I ordered a sweater on Wednesday and it’s Saturday and I have a canceled order (out of stock! They let me order it anyway!) and a depleted gift card (gift card department isn’t in over the weekend!) and nothing to show for it. They bent me over and took my monies!

HULK SMASH AUNT BECKY.

So, I see your dilemma and it’s a doozy and I found myself in that position a couple of times and here’s my best advice: go with your gut. My gut doesn’t lie. My head often skews things.

Guy Number B it is!

See, it’s much easier when I make decisions for you. Also: when I go on a Campaign of Terror, everyone around me who I am not chewing out laughs their ass off. The Daver turned blue in the face trying not to laugh where the person on the phone could hear him.

Thanks, Daver.

Dear Aunt Becky,

I have a problem. I’m 18 years old and I only attract older guys. The youngest guy I have ever had interested in me is 21. Now, this isn’t such a terrible thing except that they all make big deals about my age. They say they like me but they just can’t bring themselves to do anything about it because I am too young! So, what do you propose I do?

Love
Way Too Young

P.S. I live in Australia, so I am legal to vote, drink, drive etc. so it’s not like it would be illegal!

HOLY SHIT, YOU’RE YOU...bwhahaha! I’m teasing you.

You’re mature for your age. I think that your email shows that and that’s full of the awesome. My guess is that your boyfriends are all, “she ACTS like she’s 25, not 18!” and then when they think about it, they feel all old and stuff.

I’d take it as a compliment as best as I can.

I say that because every time I do something with my eldest son, Ben, I get the same treatment. I had him at 21 and while it’s not geriatric or anything, it’s not scandalously young.  I get mistaken for the babysitter. When I inform people that I’m his mother, it’s all “YOU CAN’T HAVE A CHILD THAT OLD,” and I’m all, “uh, wow, this is awkward now.”

Try to remember that it’s their issue, not yours. Remind me of the same, okay?

Dear Aunt Becky,

I am in love with a wonderful man.  A man who loves me and loves my daughter as his own.  A man i could never turn my back on.  I am keeping a secret from this man and i have no idea how i will ever be able to tell him.  I have herpes.  I got it from an ex (i was extremely committed to him. him, not so much in return) who cheated on me and passed it to me.

I have told this man that i want to wait until marriage until I have sex again because of all the messed up relationships i’ve had in the past.  We have talked about getting married.  I’m able to tell him everything except this….Do you have any help on how i can and should tell him?

It sounds, Prankster, like this guy is a keeper. And if this guy is a keeper, then I can’t see The Herp scaring him off. But I can absolutely see why you wouldn’t want to tell him.

But you can’t wait until marriage. That, I think, would put a serious kink in your relationship, and not the whips-and-chains kind.

So I’d approach him armed with the facts and tell him openly and honestly what happened and how terrified you were to tell him about it. If he’s as good of a guy as you say, I don’t see herpes scaring him off. Plenty of people continue to have perfectly normal and happy relationships with only one infected partner.

——————–

As always, Pranksters, please fill in where I left off in the comments. You can always submit your burningest questions to Go Ask Aunt Becky.

Also: you need to check out Froggy Girl’s Etsy shop, Hamlet’s Mistress AND Shui Teas, all of whom were brave enough to get ads on my blog, allowing me to get out from under The Man. And robots. Always with the robots.

There’s very little I like more than a bargain.

Okay, that’s a total lie. I like many things more than a bargain, up to and including sleeping, heavy sarcasm, sitting on my ass, strawberry-frosted donuts, The Twitter, mocking the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, mocking myself, obsessing over cardigans, Vicodin-chip cookies, Hostess orange-flavored cupcakes, designing photon rings in my backyard, my roses, test-driving cars, napping, thinking about napping, and watching reruns of Law and Order.

But when I get a bargain, I get the rush that I’m pretty certain causes otherwise normal people to get up at midnight and stand out in the freezing cold to be the first in line to buy something abnormally cheap on Black Friday.

I just couldn’t bring myself to actually do it, rush or no.

I’ve thought about why I wouldn’t do it most of the week  (still flat on my back in pain)and I think it boils down to not being a Team Player. I’m just not a Team Player. Shut your whore mouth.

Even if I could get my spot in line and guarantee that the item I wanted would be mine ALL MINE, I would be carted off to jail well before the doors opened.

How the hell do I know this without ever having stood in a single line? SIMPLE. I read your blogs. You guys DO stand in those lines. And between my Pranksters are peppered The Crazies. Aunt Becky don’t play with The Crazies. Especially the PUSHY crazies.

The very moment some asswad threw an elbow, tried to cut in line (HATE! THAT!) or made a comment about my happy pants (they have hearts on them!), I’d be all, “Nice teeth, Cleatus, why don’t you and your recessive genes kiss my white ass and crawl back under the rock that you crawled out from under.”

Then, his fifteen cousins would come over and beat my very small-wristed ass into a bloody pulp. Not before, of course, I got in a couple of squirrelly kicks. Then the cops would come and we’d all get hauled to jail and I wouldn’t end up with the electric back-hair groomer I’d so desperately wanted for 90% off.

What a mess.

So instead, I’ll sleep leisurely in and when I wake up, I’ll catch a few shitty sales online. None will give me the same sort of thrill that getting my nose-hair trimmer would, but I really need to let my surgical scar heal before I can go to jail. That way, I can avoid being someone’s bitch by beating the shit out of someone when I first get there.

It’s not the same, I know, so instead, I’ll live through you.

Tell me your stories. I’m sure someday I’ll go shop the Black Friday sales and bring a video camera to capture it all for maximum hilarity (for my blog, of course). Hopefully Cletus will avoid the lens when he beats me silly.

So tell me all about your experiences with the sales. My delicate wrists are going to live vicariously through you this year.

While my initial plans for Thanksgiving included sitting on my ass at home alone, I’ve been kidnapped by my savage crotch parasites (who were aghast that I was planning to avoid the festivities) and am in a car on my way to Wisconsin. I’m hoping they’ll drop me at the Mars Cheese Castle, but I doubt it’s open.

Simply put, the Mars Cheese Castle is the 9th Wonder of the World (my ass is #8) and while Wisconsin and Illinois have a longstanding war, I like to think the Cheese Castle is really in Illinois.

I’d been planning to write something different here today about what I’m thankful for, but really, I think I said it best over on Band Back Together. And since the Internet is closed on holidays, I expect a whole lot of Viag!a robots to “read” this.

But I did mean it and it showed that somewhere in there, I do have feelers beyond “pass the donuts.”

Happy Thanksgiving, Pranksters.