5/31

The good news:

I got a flat tire yesterday (one of the downsides of living/working/commuting in a rough neighborhood - screws and nails all over the freakin' place). I fortunately managed to make it to work when my coworker called me to say that I had a flat tire in the parking lot, I quickly called roadside assistance....in the rain. "Roadside assistance" came (read: one man, two kids in a hatchback Volvo) and changed my tire. I went to Discount Tires where they (and this is the part that kills me) FIXED MY TIRE FOR FREE! Yes, I had to wait an hour and embarassed myself horribly during that time (I asked the guy working the counter if he had, "gotten someone pregnant", when he mentioned that he hopes he has a boy. I realized as he sputtered, "Yes, my wife is pregnant" that I should have asked the more genteel question: "Are you expecting?". My bad. I guess getting knocked up does have lasting consequences on my social graces), but they fixed it. That's all that matters.

The bad news:

Still managed to overdraft my checking account because (ha!) Washington Mutual put a hold on my check that I deposited and (ha!) wouldn't credit my account (ha...ha....ha...). That's manical laughing your reading there....as in, "I can't win and maybe I'm going to stop trying". When I called WaMu to ask about what had happend they told me and then informed that I was qualified for the triple platinum Master Card that could help solve all of my financial issues. Right.

The ugly news:

Stress has caused my entire face to breakout. The last time I looked this bad, I was in Mongolia and didn't have access to hot water. Speaking of the 'golia, I got a beautiful package from my friend that included a jacket for me and a(nother) vest for Zac. Pictures will be forthcoming shortly. I have the best non-Central Asian-dressed baby this side of the Pacific!

5/28

Here is a video to help lighten up the mood of my recent blog entries:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtkYGyeW1NM

That's Uncle K playing with Zac on our trip up north over New Year's. I just figured out, thanks in large part to my Dad, how to get the video out of my video camera and into my computer. The new laptop doesn't hurt, either. That's Aunt Jen on the side of the screen, telling me what to push on the new camera.

I am back being fully medicated and that has helped quite a bit. It also helps that I took Friday off work to take Z. and I to the doctor so I'm currently in day 3 of a 4 day weekend. At the doctor's we found out that Z. man is in the 25th percentile for height, 50th percentile for weight, and a whopping 75th percentile for head size. (In a bad Mike Myers' Scottish accent), "Look at the size of that kid's noggin' It's huuugggge".

Kind of makes me glad that his head didn't come out my vagina.

5/25

I'm not sure what was more surprising to people: that I felt those feelings yesterday, or that I wrote about them. It was definately an "airing your dirty laundry moment in public" kind of post, one that I would have been discouraged to write if I had to ask permission for these kinds of things. Fortunately, the Internet (the most socialist, egalitarian forms of mass media) means that everyone gets to say what they think, whenever they want. Beautiful, no?

I've always had these feelings of self-hatred and blame. Let's not forget that I was hospitalized for a major depression at one point, shall we? The depression that was primarily caused by my feelings of failure and lack of self-worth. I'm just starting to get better about telling people (ok, so they are anonymous people and my family, who is forced to read about how I feel from a blog post) about these feelings. Baby steps are still steps.

I was also vague in my last post about the details of what happened yesterday. Maybe it was out of self-protection, or as My New Shoes likes to say, "Maybe I just like to be secretive". Here are some of the details:

• I asked for financial help from a family member that I don't see frequently, but who I have a good relationship with. I didn't ask my Mom, Dad, or Aunt Jen for money because they have already helped me so much with raising Zac that it didn't feel right. They tend to get the, "OMG, my car just crashed into a highway median and I think I smell gasoline. Can you come and pick me up?" kind of phone calls.
• My boss and I just talked about the perceived lack of respect from my coworkers and supervisors. In my mind, you can either underpay me or disrespect me - doing both is a quick way to make me leave and find a job where I can get one of my professional needs met. I have yet to find a job that provides both adequate pay and a decent level of respect.
• Still single. Still sucks.

At that is my devastating triumvirate of personal and professional crises: lack of money, lack of respect, lack of intimacy. Couple that with lack of antidepressant medication and a uterus that won't stop bleeding, and I think you can see why I reacted the way I did yesterday.

5/24

Mantra for the day, "I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person."

I have that sinking feeling in my stomach. You know the one. The one that makes you want to jump out of your skin and scream. Occasionally, this feeling paralyzes me to my office chair (it's interesting to note that this feeling usually coincides with work). I can't move for fear of making the feeling worse.

I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person.

I went in to talk to my boss about several comments that were made to me yesterday. Basically, I get reminded at least once or twice a week that I am not director or a supervisor and my worth to the organization is directly contingent upon that. When I started this job, they had reorganized the position so I now directly report to a director, instead of the executive. I am always going into talk to my boss about things. I'm too sensitive. I expect too much. God, I'm only 25, but I feel like I deserve so much more because I have a college degree and a brain. I'm ridiculous.

I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person. I will not get fired for asking not to be treated like an administrative assistant. Yes, there are a lot of grant writers who could do my job (not to mention trained monkeys). I am not a bad person. I am a valuable employee. They might fire me, but that doesn't make me a bad person.

I asked for financial help yesterday. Help was promised with the understanding that I should never ask for help again. It was also told to me that I should feel bad for asking for help. I had overextended myself, which makes me, understandably feel bad. Or at least it should.

I go back and forth between thinking, "I am a miserable excuse for an adult," and, "I'm a burden on my friends and family," to thinking, "Everyone needs help sometimes. It's going to be ok." with the constant thought in the back of my mind that screams, "Life shouldn't be this hard!"

The worst thought crossed my mind as I was trying to go to sleep last night: one day, Zac will feel like this and there is nothing I can do to stop that. One day, he will question every decision he has ever made and doubt his self-worth. No amount of parenting can change that. The little baby that loves nothing more than kisses from his mama and golf balls will turn into an adult.

I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person. I am not a bad person.

5/23

When I told my Dad (that’s Grandpa, to you) that I was moving out onto my own, his first reaction was, “DON’T”! This might seem like a strange reaction to those of you that don’t know my family or my history with financial incompetence. You see, I’m a good person. I vote. I recycle (when not living in a city that punishes people for recycling). I try to help others whenever I can, but I can’t seem to manage a household budget to save my ever-loving life. Lately, there hasn’t been enough money to stretch from one paycheck to another.

My Dad knows this about me. Hell, my whole family knows this about me. Money is my number 1 stress point. He didn’t want me to move out because he didn’t want to deal with me worrying about money. There is one thing to know that you are poor, there is a whole other thing to be constantly worried about money to the point that it makes yourself and your family sick (of you).

I’m going to have to ask for help. I hate asking for help almost as much as I hate being hungry. In fact, I think I’m the opposite of an anorexic – I don’t punish my body by not eating, I punish myself for my weaknesses by stuffing my face. Food is one of my only comforts and my greatest source of guilt. Why worry about affording the really expensive, far-away daycare when there are brownies to be eaten, ice cream to gorge myself on, and frivolous purchases that I can torture myself with?

I either have to put Zac into a less expensive daycare, turn off my phone, stop using the dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer, acclimate to an indoor temperature of 87 degrees, or impale myself on a sharp stick. All of these options sound mildly interesting at this point and they are all up for discussion.

5/22

I// spent all weekend at my parents' house and came home to find that my wonderful new co
uch had been delivered. Can you heart the heavenly host of angels singing? Ahh, damn, I love my couch. I love that I don't have to lay on the floor to watch any television show past 8:30pm (a time that no one should be required to sit in a straight-backed chair). I love that it now feels liks "home" rather than, "the sad place that I decided to move into because I didn't want to live with my parents forever". I still have to clean up EVERY NIGHT so the ants don't attack us in our sleep and my wool rug is still shedding so much that the vacuum cleaner works out more frequently than I do. And, yes, I still have to walk to a sketchy dumpster at the end of the parking lot to throw away my trash, but....the place is mine.

Just because it's Monday, I thought I would share my favorite pictures of Zac with the FOB:

Yep, that is my little man, beating up his biological father (No, I can't bring myself to call him his "Daddy". That man is not my child's Daddy) . I like to think he's defending my honor, like: "Why weren't you there when my Mommy was vomitting during labor because I didn't want to descend in the birth canal? Huh? Huh? Yeah, that's what I thought. No answer, sucka. I'm going to hit you and you're going to like it. Biotch"

Then there is this picture:

Yes, the FOB looks like he just finished a two-week bender with a stripper named Candy Cane, a fifth of Jack Daniels, and enough marijuana to make even the hippiest of hippy question whether it was a good idea to take another hit. What I see when I look at this picture, though, are the eyebrows on these two. They are almost identical in shape. Who knew that eyebrows were a genetic trait?

I think I'm going to keep this picture around when Zac is a teenager and wants to rebel. It will be like that old commercial: "This is your brain (an egg). This is your brain on drugs (egg frying in the frying pan." Only with Zac it will be, "This is half of your genetic chromosomes. This is half of your genetic chromosomes after thirty years of drinking and smoking. You decide."

5/18

Around the Not-so-Pregnant household, weight loss is more like weight, "I'll think about leaving your body when I'm good and ready, but don't think that you are permanently getting rid of me. I am not lost! I am waiting to be rediscovered." And I so much want to rediscover the satisfying feeling of mindless eating. There is really nothing I like more than opening up a full pantry, rummaging through the contents inside (minus ants, mind you, a feat that the pantry in my new apartment has yet to manage), and grabbing the first piece of fattening, salty goodness I find.

I hate being hungry. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It doesn't help that I work for an organization that is dedicated to eradicating hunger and food insecurity. Do you have any idea how hard it is to diet in a place that routinely uses the phrase, "helping feed the hungry."

How about you feed me? I'm hungry.

I've lost 3.7 pounds to date in five weeks. For the more mathematically challenged, that is less than a pound a week, a.k.a: the slowest weight loss in history. I might have lost a little bit more than that, but I couldn't go to my Weight Watchers meeting this week to be officially weighed. The main problem is that I can't really afford spending $12 a week to get weighed, when, really, they should be paying me for that kind of torture. Kind of makes me want to buy a scale and forgo the meeting part. But, we all know that my self-control isn't at peak performance level, which is how I got to this weight to begin with (that and the 9 pound baby). I neeeeeed to go to the meetings. I've become a Weight Watchers junkie.

Give me another hit of self-love! Someone tell me that I'm a success just because I put down the fudge brownie and made it to the meeting. Someone tell me that drinking more water will increase my energy and pave the way to healthy weight loss. Someone tell me that I need to love myself before I can expect my body to lose the weight. Anyone?

See, I told you it was a cult.

5/17

Work has been so slow lately. Waiting patiently for nine hours to go by is something like me trying to wait patiently for a giant volcano to explode and wipe out Houston. I'm just not a very patient person. Motherhood has only made this (lack of) quality worse because now I do things on demand. Infants have even less patience than I do. When Z. wants to get changed, fed, held, or left alone, he lets me know about it, LOUDLY! I'm usually forced to respond, "Ok, OK! Here, I'll trade you a bottle for your right arm. Mommy wants to put the arm into the pajamas so we can go nite, nite. Mommy is very tired.... Damnit, Zachary, just give me your arm. You can play with my boobs after you get dressed."

When I have little to do at work, I'm like the overachiever in the 5th grade: the one that kept getting in trouble because she could. I want to grab my scissors and run around the office screaming, "I'm running with scissors and you can't stop me! I'm running with scissors!!" followed by a maniacal laugh that would make my bosses question why they hired me in the first place. Some people would try and find activities for themselves to do or reorganize the bathroom's supply closet, but not me. I'm too busy running with scissors and poking the kid next to me with a sharpened pencil - just because I can.

Too much time at work, followed by too little free time at home, is a dangerous combination. Before you know it, I'll be plotting the overthrow of the world during work and matching socks at home, all before going to bed at promptly 9pm.

5/15

It must be instinctual that little boys protect their privates. It kind of brings a new meaning to the word, "cup", no?

I just passed my first "official" Mother's Day on Sunday. Honestly, everywhere I went, people were making a H-U-G-E deal out of it. The daycare had a Mother's Day lunch, complete with sandwiches, fruit, and Mother's Day cards from other people's kids, if yours was too young to make you one (my little prodigy fits into that categoy. Protect his privates, check. Cut construction paper into a shape of a flower and then scrawl, "Happy Muthers Day", not so much.) On the radio, everyone kept talking about Mother's Day and then my Mom and I kept talking about it. Really, I thought that I would feel differently about the day now that I am a mother, but I don't. It's still a made-up holiday (granted, one that is celebrated around the world at different times) and I still am wary of setting aside one day to celebrate the other 364 days in a year that a Mom cleans a dirty, smelly, poopy butt. Being vomitted on this morning only hammered it home.

I'm also having a bit of....how can I put this delicately....nope, I can't: breeder's guilt. I've been reading A Little Pregnant's blog. She went through years of heartbreak during her struggle with infertilty and IVF. The only difference between her story and thousands of other women is that her story ends well: she has a son and she is now trying for a second child. I thought about this last night as I finished my first month on seasonale . I have two months to go before I get a period and it is just a little weird, especially now that I'm single again. Don't get me wrong, one of the best side effects of pregnancy and breast feeding was the lack of periods, but it is just hard to imagine that I have to try so hard to NOT get pregnant (the pill and condoms - two is preferable, but one will suffice) whereas other women try so hard to GET pregnant. It doesn't seem fair.

If I could take out my uterus and loan it to women who could make better use out of it, I would.

5/11

When I lived in Mongolia, gracious, wonderful friends and family members would send me reading material. "Reading material" was a loosely defined phrase that encompassed receipts, help wanted ads, information about college applications, magazines, and books of all genres. My parents frequently sent me Reader's Digest, which often features articles like: "10 Easy Steps to Reclaim Your Time," or: "How to organize your life to reduce stress". Reading these articles was something akin to eating soup in 100 degree weather. You sweat even more and your tongue stings for a couple of days...All I had was time. All I could imagine, while laying on my too-small bed in my ger, were the days, stacked onto days, onto days like Lego building blocks. Eventually, the tower of days that I had constructed in my mind out of brightly colored plastic blocks went onto infinity and I slowly went crazy. This is what having too much time will do: you will be forced to overdramatize everything and imagine what a visual representation of time would look like.

Other PCVs and I would discuss this phenomenon. Our conversations usually went something like this:

A: What the hell are Americans so busy doing? Don't they have electricity, appliances, paved roads, and personal assistants over there? Isn't it the easiest way of life on the planet?

B: You would think. When I go back to America, I'm never going to complain about being too busy or being too stressed out. I'm going to set my car on cruise control going 75 mph, call up my friends on my hands free cell phone, and just enjoy life.

Then the conversation would just disintegrate into, "The thing I miss most about America is...." and a perrenial favorite, "If I was back in America right now, I would do.....". The point is, our social and technological infrastructure should make life easier. Paved roads, electrical wires, wi-fi towers, satelite radio, cell phones, washing machines, automatic vacuum cleaners, and crockpots all mean that we can do more while not actually being at home. As I was organizing (or attempting to organize the shambles of my finances), once I finally made it home from my hour commute to the daycare, I realized that my life is bogged down in debt: organizing, filing, thinking about, and finally paying the bills take up so much of my adult life that I don't actually spend much time on the wi-fi internet that I pay $30 a month for.

Add in trying to feed and keep Zac and I clean, and there you have a typical night. I guess this is life - single and not-so-pregnant.

5/09

I would like to start using phrases like: "You are the first person in the history of the world to...." more often. Or even better yet: "I am the first person in the history of the world to....". That phrase is sticking with me today, as I'm feeling melodramatic and sorry for myself. Wildflower told me that I was the first person in the history of the world to comment on her blog. I still smile to myself when I think about that. What a great feeling....the first in the world.

Here are my firsts today, which of course aren't really firsts. I'm hoping that as I write them, I will realize how mundane everything truly is, as all experiences are shared equally among sensitive creatures (especially insecure ones)

I am the first woman in the world to feel that I'll never find someone who will love both Zac and I.

I am the first woman in the world to question trying to date as a single Mom.

I am the first person in the world who gets excited by the thought of starting a new craft project after seeing an overpriced piece of art work on the CB2 website.

I am the first person in the world who actually knows what CB2 is and is excited.

I am the first woman in the world to look down at her flabby, distended stomach and rolls of skin and wonder if bringing life into the world actually ended my social life.

I am the first woman in the world to cry when I think about starting this next chapter of my life, alone, again.

5/01

What a freakin' week this has been! Z got his ear tubes last Monday and things seem to be going well. The little ear plugs that they gave us when he left the hospital will only stay in his ears for .05 seconds before he rubs them and they pop out. He seems to be a bit cranky now a days, however, and I'm not sure if that is caused by his silly Mom getting water in his ears or the teeth that never seem to want to come in. Either way, there is quite a bit of ear rubbing, thumb biting in the Not-so-Pregnant abode, and not all of it is done by the Z man. In other baby news, Zac took off his pants last night (he was wearing a new two-piece pajamas set) and once again pooped in his sleep. The whole, pooping in the sleep thing normally doesn't bother me, but it was upsetting that he had done it sans-pants. The next step is a whole fist full of poop smeared all of the crib. I can see it coming.

I think I'm starting to adjust to life in the apartment. Last week, after a major rainstorm, I walked down into the kitchen and realized that it was raining indoors, through the kitchen light fixture and onto the ground. Turns out that the rain actually didn't cause the problem at all, but that a toilet had exploded in the upstairs bathroom (it's a two-story townhouse/apartment) and leaked through the floor and down to the kitchen. Good times, I tell you. I called maintenance and left the house, thankful that I didn't actually own the stinkin' place. By the time that I had come back from work, they had repaired the toilet and replaced the stained light fixture. Whether or not I will one day I will be cleaning said toilet and fall through the floor, landing on the kitchen linoleum remains to be seen.

S. and I are still hanging out. We had a long talk on Friday night about everything and he asked me not too worry so much. Me....not worrying so much! I'm a born worrier. Everytime I've felt confident about love or friendship, it has spelled the end of that relationship. I guess the best part about me maturing a bit more is that I don't feel compelled to air my insecurities to him or constantly have him reassure me about everything. I realize that I'm dealing with my own issues and I, instead, rely on my support system when I start to have a panic attack. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the aforementioned support system for crazy phone calls that you have gotten and will continue to get in the future.