I’m having one of those The Universe Peed In My Lucky Charms days today, and it’s not for any good reason. I’m thrilled as all hell that the fetus (is it a fetus now? I don’t even know) is still there, still making me sick as shit, I’m pleased about my agents and the way my proposal is shaping up (a huge thank you to those of you who have been kind enough to edit for me), and it’s a beautiful day outside today.

And yet. And YET. I’m stabby and cranky.

In no apparent order, these are the dumb things making me angry today:

*After I got home from the doctor yesterday, buoyed by good news, I saw that I had a message from the place that we’re holding my best friend’s bridal shower. Fuck, I thought to myself, this can’t be good.

And it wasn’t.

The place is closing a week before the shower and despite having already sent out invitations and the like with this place listed, we have to scramble and come up with a NEW place to hold it. Now, I’m thrilled that this is the only thing I have to worry about (what kind of luxury is that?) but HELLO, that’s annoying.

Mainly because the shower is in 3 weeks.

Fuck!

*The Battle Over Who Does The Cat Boxes Rages Wildly in my house, and reached a fever pitch this morning when I found a neat pile of cat shit outside of my door. It appears as though NO ONE has done them (this is an ages old fight. I do them when I’m not pregnant, and I’m not supposed to do them when I am).

Which meant that I donned a Lead Paint mask thingy–called a respirator. The same one you use for TB exposure– and did them myself today. (Don’t worry, I’d 99% guess I’m immune to toxoplasmosis. I’ve been cleaning cat shit boxes since I was a teeny girl).

*My mouth tastes soapy literally all day long, and I cannot seem to rid myself of it. It’s as disgusting as it sounds.

*My mother-in-law is coming to stay for the weekend and I’m forced to get off my duff, stop working on my writing and clean this Pit Of Despair that I currently live in. Morning sickness, shall we say, was not kind to my house.

*Alex seems to be afflicted by the same General Crankatude that I am, and it’s not helping matters very much. He’s currently up in his crib honking about not wanting to go to sleep. I only wish someone confined me to bed for a couple of hours!

So what peed in YOUR Cornflakes, Internet? Anything?

At least I think we do. I could have swallowed a mechanical…something…that makes a loud heartbeat type noise. Baby Sausage (Link or Patty? THIS IS THE QUESTION) was chirping away merrily in there, all 150+ beats per minute of it.

After I gave approximately 540 pints of blood–between the OB and the endocrinologist I totally am having a damn port put in–including some designated for an HIV test (always a laugh a minute test, FOR SURE), I was let go. Only to return in 16 weeks.

Or when my stash of freebie prenatal vitamins runs out. What, me cheap? NEVER. And you know Aunt Becky’s Motto: Free Is Always Better Than Paying.

Thank you for all who indulged my ridiculous fears without reminding me of what an idiot I can be. I have something corny to tell you. It’s so corny I almost can’t say it because I might humiliate myself (whereas talking about throwing a hotdog down MY hallway is nothing. Priorities, I tell you).

*deep breath*

Here goes: Okay, when my nurse initially put the doppler on, all we heard was my whooshing heartbeat. And I sat there while I tried not to hyperventilate and was comforted by my Internet friends. I seriously thought of you guys while I quietly panicked.

GOD. I’m so corny.

Anyway, I love you all bunches and heaps and not in a creepy stalkery way. I’ll be back tomorrow with a penis post. My poor husband is going to run off to Cabo now.

Love you all!

Today at approximately 2:45 (do you like how I said “approximately” and then gave an exact time? Me either) I return to see one of my favorite doctors: my OB. He’s the one I saw when I was pregnant with Alex, the one who always “forgets” who The Daver is and asks me if it’s the same guy (he’s joking. I think), the one who always remembers that my grandfather was a doctor. He’s no-nonsense and I adore him.

He’s starkly different from my first OB, the only OB that my crappy HMO would let me see. He wasn’t a bad guy, he probably said all of 12 words to me the whole time I was pregnant with Ben, and that’s okay. I’ve never needed someone to really hold my hand or reassure me (until I spotted. Then that was ALL I needed), and it wasn’t his lack of vocal chords (I can only surmise) but the fact that he was an uber-Christian.

And me? I was unmarried. And unhappy.

I’ll say for him that he never, ever made any real remarks to me about it, save for my first appointment when he acknowledged that things must be really hard right now. And they were terribly hard.

No, what I’m still bitter about with my first OB was the dreaded forceps delivery I had. Which gave me 4th degree tearing–the highest level possible. At age 21. I’ve occasionally pestered Dave to tell me if having The Sex with me is like throwing a hotdog down a hallway, and he laughs, but secretly I worry.

*sighs*

I guess I’ll never know.

What I do know is this: I’m literally kicking myself for not asking The Daver (hotdog down hallway aside) to stay home and go with me to this appointment. Not because I’m all insecure and can’t do anything without him, but because it’s one of those Scary For Aunt Becky Appointments, a Landmark Appointment, if I may (and I always may).

Today is the Doppler/Heartbeat day.

And although I’m still sick as shit, still have the world’s worst soapy taste in my mouth constantly, still haven’t taken a proper poo in who knows how long, I’m full of nervous. In fact, I’m so ridiculously nervous that I ASKED MY MOTHER (the least sympathetic/reassuring person on the planet. You have to trust me on this) TO COME WITH ME. Oh yes, yes I did.

If I’m gonna get bad news, I’d rather have SOMEONE besides Alex there to help me out.

*sighs*

I’m a neurotic freak, I know.

Every now and again, Daver and I will set up shop outside (typically nursing a couple of cold frosty ones. Like Miller High Life: The Champagne of Beers) and discuss our children. His work tends to be the sort that my brain is not large enough to process and my “work” is so mind-numbingly dull (“…and THEN, and THEN I emptied the DUST BUSTER! Bwahahahaha!”) that neither of us care to discuss it.

So we instead discuss the future lives of our children. Hypothetically speaking.

And since I was a bit of a rebel in my own way (dude, have you MET NAT? Obviously a rebellion thing), I often ponder what my children will do to horrify me later in life. It’s inevitable, so we try to brace ourselves for whatever would bug us the most.

Which, maybe it’s because I’m so graceful that I nearly broke my foot walking down the stairs, or because last summer I literally fell through the front door while stone-cold sober, would be interpretive dancing.

Yes, I would die if my son became an interpretive dancer.

I have no real problems with dancer in general; if I were going to do something cultured, I’d likely chose the symphony or the opera–didn’t know your Aunt Becky liked opera, didya?–and not the ballet, but the ballet is different. I can understand ballet.

Interpretive dancing, however, baffles me. I simply don’t, and probably never will, follow or appreciate what some people think of as Dancing With The Music (Creepily). I just don’t get it. And I’m kinda freaked out by it.

I made the mistake of telling my older brother and his wife about this in a completely stupid turn of events, so now every time they see Ben, they encourage him to “do a dance that reminds him of a salad” or “doesn’t the thought of a cat make you want to dance like one?” I sit quietly there, while poor Ben tries to act this out, clenching my teeth and hissing that they had better get damn good and comfortable going to every.single.fucking.show.he.does.

They always laugh, seemingly unaware that I am deadly serious. I will drag them from their comfortable yuppie home and drive them to the abandoned warehouse my son–my interpretive dancer son–and his troupe of equally misguided youths (I hope) will perform for us all. In 100 degree heat. While we sit on the cement floor next to scuttling cockroaches.

And I will rue the day I had these as my siblings.

What would be the worst profession you could imagine your future child doing? Let’s assume that they are happy with it, so you can’t use any bullshit “whatever he’s HAPPY with” line. Let’s also leave “soldier” out of this one, because here on my blog you mean “politician” or “Republican.”

See, SEE? I went to BlogHer after all, with a little help from my good friend Backpacking Dad.

Next year I hope to not have a body-double.

Well, thank ye kindly, Internet for your well-wishes on my new-found agents. I’m not sure I’ve yet processed what a big fucking deal this is (and I know it is), and maybe that’s a good thing. Because then I might get nervous.

Eventually, what I so desperately need you for, darling Internets is to help me rework parts of my slower essays so that they all pop out at you and get in your face and shit. After I finish tweaking my proposal a bit, I’ll be focusing on finishing and reworking parts of my essays. This is where you’ll come in.

When I identify what I need help with, I’ll paste it on over here and ask for your honest opinion. Pretty much, I want to know how to make it better. Because once this bitch is in print, there isn’t any going back and fixing it again.

I’m busily working on my proposal today, so I probably won’t get back here for a real post, but wanted to tell you ONCE AGAIN, how much I fucking love you. And because I say “fucking” you know I mean it.

Got any good gossip for me, Internet?

It always shocks me to learn that something I find so utterly inconsequential would be so controversial, so worthy of being yelled at and berated for. Something that when people learn of it, they sputter and shout, get their proverbial panties in a bunch, and tend to form an immediate opinion of She’s An Idiot, Let’s Smile, Nod, And Run Like Hell.

Of course, I’m talking about one of the myriad of things in the world I don’t happen to like.

I’ll admit it to you, here and now, and you can decide if you’d like to continue to read the blog of someone who doesn’t like sandwiches.

Yes, Internet, I am telling you that I do not like sandwiches.

I know, I know, how is there a God if someone admits to disliking such an old standby? How can the world spin properly on its’ axis while some Midwestern Idiot doesn’t like sandwiches? WHAT’S THERE NOT TO LIKE?

Well, I don’t know. I guess I just don’t really care for meat shoved between slices of warm bread (oooo, she’s being dirty now). Now, this isn’t to say that there aren’t exceptions to the rule: sometimes I might dig on a sandwich–especially if it’s dripping with vinegar–but overall, I’m okay without either.

Before you peg me as a card carrying member of People Who Hate Sandwiches And Make Those Who Do Feel Badly For It (sadly not a Yahoo Group at this time, HINT, HINT, HINT), let me be the first to assure you that I’ve never picketed a Subway, never thrown pad thai at people exiting Jimmy John’s, never even worn a shirt proclaiming my abhoration of such an American staple. In fact, surprisingly I don’t even own such a shirt.

I’m free to coexist peaceably among the Sandwich Lover’s Of The World, begging off when people go for a taste sensation on a bun, preferring, well, most anything else.

I’m free, of course, until I dare open my mouth and explain precisely WHY I won’t be going with for a li’l slice of Heaven. All it takes is some seemingly innocuous comment “Well, I don’t really like sandwiches” before someone jumps down my throat, feet first.

“Whaaaat?” They sputter at me, squinting at me disbelievingly, “You don’t like sandwiches? WHY, O WHY NOT? THEY’RE THE MOST WONDERFUL THING ON THE PLANET!”

When I reply, typically with a shoulder roll, a Golly Gee ‘Aw Shucks’ expression and a simple, “I don’t know,” The Sandwich Lovers invariably question me further. “Were you abused by a sandwich? Did you accidentally eat one raw? Did you RUN ONE OVER? Were you made fun of by a sandwich as a child?”

The answer to all those questions and more is a simple, “No” and the moment I utter that one syllable I’m immediately taken for as The Enemy Of The Freedom To Love Sandwiches and anything else I say is disregarded completely.

So far I’ve avoided defending myself the Creepy Sandwich People by explaining precisely what it is that I do not like: lunch meat is phony meat (don’t ask me where I got that idea. I refuse to eat meat from TV dinners, too), lunch meat is loaded with sodium and frightening preservatives (altho a hot dog is one of my favorite foods, well, ever), bread has a billion calories in it, I hate mayo, I like my veggies separate from the rest of my food.

I avoid explaining it because it’s pointless. I don’t like sandwich because I don’t like sandwiches. It’s simple and yet ridiculously (needlessly) complex.

I think from now on, I’m going to tell people that sandwiches are against my religion. Maybe it’ll help.

A couple of months ago I let on that I’d been writing a bunch of essays in my not-so-spare time, and it was something I was shy to admit to even you, Sweet Internet. For someone who has told the internet so much about the state of her vagina, I tend to be a fairly private person. Especially when I’m branching out of my comfort zone of bon-bons, martini’s, and cheese queso, which this would absolutely qualify as.

I was so quiet about the whole situation that I only shamefully told my best friends about it when I was nearing the end of it all. I suppose I was just being shy. Well, that and it seems that everyone and their brother has an aspiration to Write a Book or Be An Actor That Sleeps With Vincent D’Onofrio, and the last thing that I want to be is like someone else.

Plus my 5 Year Plan involves only one phrase: Don’t Die.

I’m not that much of a planner, I suppose, although up until very recently, my Diet Coke stash was never depleted. Now it just tastes like battery acid, you bastard, and I don’t obviously want to drink it.

But I have a new non-Diet Coke related quest, Internet, one that I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about sooner. Shh, baby, it’s okay, Aunt Becky still loves you best.

I’ve written a book, and I need help. My literary agents have thoughtfully suggested that I come to you for some suggestions on some of my more sluggish essays, and I think that’s a brilliant idea. Would you be willing to help me, Sweet Internet, in my quest?

Yes, you read that right: I have literary agents. And a book. It’s a good book, I think, and I think you’ll like it.

For some reason, I suppose as my special comeuppance for becoming an older and somehow unwiser–now 28 year old!– birthday girl, Alex has turned this week into The Week Where I See What Teenage Years Have In Store For Me. In short, he’s turned into quite a whiny, demanding and possibly possessed baby.

A possibly possessed baby who tantrums when the world does not do precisely what he expects it to. He’s turned from a laid-back (okay, that’s a lie. Complete lie) dude into a high maintenance diva, kinda like Paris Hilton. Actually, she’s probably kinder.

What makes it all the more interesting and hair-greying is that he does it all without actually using real English words. Maybe he’s tapping into his past life and speaking The Old Language (perhaps Swahili?) or maybe he’s just channeling The Devil himself, but I can’t understand a fucking thing he’s saying.

Yet without the benefit of a Devil->English dictionary I’m expected to not only understand what he’s demanding, but get my ass in gear and GET IT FOR HIM, Mom, you ignorant slut! And it better be damn right the first time!

It pretty much means that my days are now spent listening to a wee tot scream at me for hours on end. My nerves, if they weren’t frayed enough to begin with, are beginning to look like they’re leaking out of my ears. Charming. Quite a charming look.

Think I’m exaggerating? It’s now 11:13 here, he’s been up since 9:45 and this is what I’ve been tantrumed about so far:

*Not turning to the right page in a book (incidentally, not the NEXT page in the book)

*Not going outside right now, where the wasps roam freely, looking perhaps, to eat me alive (no, I’m allergic. So much so that I need to call 911 if I get stung. Which is really not what I want to do, because how embarrassing is that?)

*Not giving him the proper piece of my waffle, even though I was kindly sharing AFTER he’d had his own breakfast.

*A beach ball not doing what he wanted it to do (which is? I don’t know)

*My audacity to use the bathroom at such an inappropriate time as ever.

*My refusal to open a bottle of pricey vanilla extract for him to play with.
It’s a good damned thing that he’s singularly one of the most hilarious people I’ve ever met, or I might start threatening to sell him to the gypsies. Or get him an exorcism. Whatever works, right?

So I woke up today a whole year older and I feel…exactly the same. When I was a kid, I always thought that I should feel somehow different, older and wiser, or at least, have my boobs grow a size or something to ring in the New Year. Sadly–or is it thankfully, since I’ve already surpassed the Maximum Boob Size I’d Wanted years ago–I’ve never noticed an appreciable change in me.

However, in response to my pathetic pity party post (alliteration much?) I did manage to procure myself my very own Blog Troll, something I’d wanted very, very much and am counting as my Own Personal Birthday Present. Thank you, o Blog Troll, for coming by to reflect upon my general state of self-pity and inability to be pleased by what I have.

But despite being openly berated by someone with bad grammar, the rest of The Internet deserves a massive Thank You from my heart to yours. I’d send you a present if I could, sweet Internet, whom I love so very much that it hurts.Seriously, you made me blush a little bit and maybe my nipples got a little hard when I saw that everyone else refrained from telling me how obnoxious I was being (oh, don’t get me wrong, the Blog Troll was RIGHT. I was whining.) and some of you even understood what the hell I was blabbering about.

Will you marry me, Internet?

So today, I ask you, my sweet Internet, something I’ve always wondered and never thought to ask (primarily because I am dumb). Zodiac signs, hoax or dogma? I’m a Cancer, born a couple weeks early–supposed to be a Leo–and although I suppose some of the traits fit (like throwing shit onto a wall?) I don’t really see it. What do you think?