Bill W. is My Spirit Animal

Well, here it is, come and gone: February 10th. Six years gone by.

The first six minutes were as long as the first six days, the first six days were as long as the first six months, and the first six months were as long as the past six years. I don't know if I will ever be fixed- or if that is even possible. I don't know if I will be able to sit here in six more years and say that that I'm still sober. But I do know that I am sober right now-  and that I have been sober for the past 52,595 hours. I'll be damned if I'm not going to make it to 52,596.  One second at a time, one minute, one hour- clawing through each day and deciding that everything in my life is worth more than a liquid in a bottle. Deciding to live because I was meant to live. Deciding not to spend my days curled up on the bathroom floor, but standing in my backyard like an idiot with my arms up in the air, letting the sun shine on my face. I don't care how hard it is or how much it hurts, I will keep fighting for my life every damn day.

Six years down, infinity to go- here's hoping for sunny days.

Outwit, Outlast, Outparent

Before you have kids, it's so easy to be snarky about all of the crap that you WOULD NEVER DO. I would never give my baby formula! I would never put my kid on a leash! I would never rub raw meat on my toddler and push her into a lion cage! Well guess what? I've done all of those things just in the last six months! Except for the leash thing. That's just messed up.

When you watch other people with their kids, you think that every move they make must be part of some brilliant philosophy of parenting. There must be a rationale behind all of these rules they've set for their kids. As it turns out, there's no philosophy at all behind parenting- except kill or be killed.  If you aren't one step ahead of them, they will be jumping on your back and sinking their deceptively sharp baby teeth into your unshowered flesh. They can smell fear, and they won't hesitate to rip out your jugular in the middle of the supermarket and leave you to bleed to death in the baking aisle. (A good rule of thumb: Just stay out of the damn baking aisle. You don't have time to bake, only to make the dough and then eat it raw by the fistful while you hide in the laundry room. On second thought, maybe the baking aisle is ok.)

I had many ideas about parenting before I had kids, and even when I had just one baby. Those were the good old easy days. Once you have a toddlerbomb on your hands, you can hear that little ticking noise 24/7- letting you know that you are mere moments from the type of explosion that would have made Oppenheimer shed a radioactive tear of joy. Avoiding that explosion, especially in public, is now your only mission in life. (Don't get me started on the idea that if your kid melts down in the store you should just leave. Really? OK. We'll just go home and gnaw on styrofoam for dinner. Thanks for the suggestion.) The reality is, you have shit to do, and it needs to get done. And those Hurt Locker suits are really heavy and way too hot for Florida.

So you do whatever you have to do just to get through it. Just to SURVIVE. Just to get home to the next Mary Poppins-esque dance party/craft fair that you have planned using organic hemp-based paints that you sourced from a women's collective in Tamil Nadu. Or to make it home in time for the Doc McStuffins marathon.  Yeah, that too. Who cares if you have to put your kid on a leash (I did this too, by the way) or if you have to buy some cheap plastic wand that your kid points at elderly people in the paper towel aisle and screams "I WILL FREEZE YOUR HEART!" At least you are still alive. Which is more that can be said for that elderly lady in the paper towel aisle with the frozen heart. She's just screwed.

Also, go see Frozen. It's good.

A Day Without Sunshine is Like Night

There are tumbleweeds blowing through this blog.  I feel terrible about it, because it's basically the only thing that I do and it's not getting done.  Dreams of publishing the next best seller = crushed under a sh!t ton of poopy diapers.  The reality is that I don't find life all that funny right now.  There are funny moments still, just surrounded by endless drooling.  I'm drooling.  Not my kids.  I guess they probably are too though.

I've been to St. Petersburg twice in my life during White Nights, which is the time during the summer when it doesn't get dark there.  (Doesn't White Nights sound like a Moody Blues song or a KKK concert series?  Yeah, I thought so too.)  The first time I was there, I was 15 and I thought it was amazing.  Who needs sleep?  Let's just stay up all night!!!  There's no difference between night and day!  YAY!!!  The second time I was there I was 28, and I almost died.  Why in the hell is there no difference between day and night?  I need to sleep!!!  You see my point.  Five years on from that and I am living in permanent White Nights. (NOT the KKK concert series.)  There is no difference between night and day.  I am always awake, wiping butts and taking names.  And it's killing me.

The funny thing about sleep deprivation is nothing.  There's nothing funny or redeeming about it.  It makes me feel drunk, but without any fun keg stands or tight black pants.  It just sucks.  Maybe someday soon my baby will decide to sleep again and I will start writing.  I'm guessing maybe 14 or 15 years from now?  I think that's a solid estimate.  

You bet your ass I'll bet on my ass!

I can't even read that title, so I'm sure no one else can, either.  Whatever- deal with it.  What I am trying to say is that I recently ventured into the next frontier of weight loss- wait for it- the "social" diet.

When I moved to Florida, I thought I was a reasonable looking person.  Not super thin, but decently put together.  And then I looked around.  Women here are THIN.  I don't know if the excessive heat melts the fat off, or if having to spend 364 days a year in a bikini is enough to ruin appetites, but something about this place makes it just full of skinny women.  Is this where ex-yoga teachers come to retire since the environment so closely resembles one of those crazy hot rooms that they torture people in?  Is my town full of women who aged out of playing Jasmine in Disney on Ice?  Wherever they're coming from, they're all hot.  Damn it.

Because I am decidedly NOT hot, I decided that maybe I should do something about my outlook and my Dunlop (if you're unfamiliar with that term, it means that your stomach dunlopped over your belt) and find something inspiring online.  That's when I stumbled onto DietBet (www.dietbetter.com) - the hottest sensation sweeping, well, me.  When you join a DietBet, you essentially wager money that you can lose 4% of your body weight in a month.  For the DietBet that I joined, that worked out to 7.5 pounds, and I bet $25.  If I lose the weight, I am guaranteed to at least make the money I bet back.  If I lose and other people don't, I get their money, too.  So now not only can you fail at losing weight, but you can lose money too!  Sounds like the most depressing idea in human history- right up there with Leprosy and the cancellation of My So-Called Life.

Luckily for me, I only function under this kind of pressure.  Left to my own devices, I will procrastinate WAY beyond the point of reason and never start anything.  With money on the line, you bet your ass I will try to lose some of my ass.  And lose some of my ass I did.  Eight pounds of it, to be exact.  I'm pretty sure all eight pounds of it was not lost from my actual ass though, just to be clear.   The only ass that can handle that amount of fluctuation in a month belongs to the owner of the Northwest Passage.  (That's a veiled reference to Kim Kardashian's lady parts, for anyone wondering.)  I think that a little of my Dunlop is gone, and the second to last toe on my right foot seems just a tiny bit thinner.  All in all, I'd call that a success.

How much money did I win?  I bet that's the entire reason you're still reading this, huh?  Jerk.  Joke's on you, I don't even know yet. The DietBet gods need 24 to 36 hours to deliver one of those giant checks to my house.  I'll report back, probably from Dubai where I plan on investing my new fortune in a series of ill-conceived Nathan's Famous Hot Dog locations.  

TO BE CONTINUED when I find out how much I won!!!!!!!  Try not to stroke out from the excitement!!!!!

Eleven Ways That Parenthood is Just Like a 1990 New Kids on the Block Concert

1.  Sure, the ticket only cost $22.  But the requisite t-shirt is $49 and a button the size of a dinner plate is $16.99.  By the time you pay for all of the extra crap, you're a grand in the hole before the thing even starts.

2.  If Bobby Brown is hanging around, something has gone terribly awry.

3.  Your shoes stick to the floor. With. Every. Step. Likely a mixture of adolescent tears and Sunny D.

4.  You find a soggy cheerio in your bra.  Wait, that's just parenthood.

5.  The shrieking.  Oh god, the shrieking.

6.  There's a fiery redhead in leather chaps who seems to be hanging around an awful lot- here's hoping it's just Tiffany.

7.  The youngest one is the cutest.  It's OK to admit it.

8.  What is that on the floor of the bathroom?  Phlegm?  Wet paper towel?  GoGurt?

9.  There is just so much crying.  Is it happy crying?  Is it sad crying?  It's pointless to try to figure it out- just ignore it.

10.  "Step by step, ooh baby, gonna get to you girl."  Yep, you're getting to me all right.

11.  At the end of the night, you stumble to bed bewildered, ears ringing, reeking of Electric Youth.  Best day ever.

When you wish upon a star, wish for the inventor of Fastplay to burn in hell.

At some point while I wasn't paying attention, this blog reached 10,000 page views.  Now, I know for a fact that some of those page views are coming from spammers in Russia.  But who cares- aren't Russian robots people too?  I say they are, and welcome them to the Snark Side family.  Also, I have spent three or four entire days just clicking on my own posts to drive the stats up.  You can't win the election if you don't vote for yourself- that's what I say.  In any event, a whole mess of people have read this blog since it began, and I am very thankful for that.  This blog gives me an outlet to both spread my crazy to the world, and also to act as birth control for several of you.  I am honored- and I'm now also considered an "in-network provider" by several insurance companies.  The more horrifying tales I tell, the fewer of you pop out expensive babies who will also cause you to seek extensive psychotherapy on a fairly regular basis for 18 years straight.  I'm humbled, really I am.

Now that I have your ear, can I warn those childless readers about one of the single biggest threats to human sanity????  Once you have kids, you will quickly discover that they can be super annoying- and can keep you from even the simplest of tasks.  I once spent an entire day trying to wash ONE dish.  Just one.  Once you realize you can't accomplish anything with minions underfoot, you will lay rubber all over the road to the nearest store and snap up every un-vaulted Disney movie you can get your drool-encrusted hands on.  (DON'T get me started about the damn Disney vault.  Gee, let's make it impossible to buy our products!  Sounds like a winning business formula to me!)  You will throw that movie into the bluray so fast that you'll have to use a blowtorch to melt the security packaging off.  And press the movie in.  And wait.

What you'll see is one of world's true human rights violations.  A kind voice will tell you "This DVD is equipped with Disney's Fastplay."  Oh, awesome, you think.  A fast way to just get to the movie. I'll click on that.  Thanks, Disney.  You've clearly recognized that I am a stretched parent with little time on my hands, and you've decided to make at least one thing in my life fast.  I really appreciate that.

WRONG.  WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.  Fastplay takes longer than childbirth.  And I'm talking about my 30 and 24 hour labors- not your six hour bullshit.  9,237 previews later, as your child is screaming and waving some type of small axe-like toy, you realize you're an idiot.  "Fastplay" actually means 900 previews, four commercials, more previews (likely for movies you can't even buy) and then finally- the actual menu of the movie.  Now, you're probably saying, who cares?  Shut your trap and watch some previews.  (You're saying that to me though, not my kids.  Say that to my kids and I'll shank your ass.)  Let me tell you why it matters.

It matters because it's wrong to lie.  It's wrong to offer battle-weary parents something "fast" and then yank it away.  It's wrong to sit in your swanky little office in Orlando and leave us to deal with the "BUT THIS ISN'T MY MOVIE!!!  WHERE'S MY MOVIE???!!!???  I WANT AURORA!!!!  MAKE IT PLAY AURORA!!!!  I WANT GOLDFISH!!!!!  MY SHOES HURT!!!" and so on and so forth- headlong into total meltdown.

Thanks for ruining my day, Disney.  You really know how to drive me right to the brink of mental ruin and threaten everything I hold dear.  Don't worry though, I will soon visit you and spend $4,400 on half-day passes.  Per person.  Can't wait!  Seriously though, I can't wait.

Apples to Apples, Dust to Dust

My house is dusty as holy heck.  There was a swear there, but I took it out because I swear too much.  It's dusty, and we just moved in.  Where does the dust come from?  What does it want from me?  Sometimes I like to write messages in it and see how long they last- some have reached heiroglyph status.  I don't know how to spell heiroglyph, which is pathetic if you consider that I have a degree in archaeology. I have dusty furniture, and a degree in archaeology that I've never used.  And an unfinished MA in archaeology, if you want to get really depressing.  And I'm not athletic.  Or crafty.  I'm just a little bit flabby.  Sometimes I go months without touching my eyebrows.  There's a rather large gecko in my closet.  Etc.

What is my point?  That I like to whine?  That's true, I also whine way too much, and I have nothing to whine about.  I have no idea what to do with my life.  I have no skills and no talent.  And so on, and so forth.

These thoughts have consumed me lately- and basically paralyzed me.  I don't hate myself per se.  I think I'm reasonably intelligent, and I know that I am a "good" person- whatever the hell that means.  I know if I tripped an old man, I'd help him get up.  It's been eons since I punched a baby.  But I don't LIKE myself, and that's a huge problem.

I took my kids to a very large playgroup at a church yesterday- think 75 kids.  As we walked around, I was practically vomiting from self-consciousness.  I was standing weird, or staring at something, or thinking that maybe I just stole this chair from someone and now everyone is talking about how much they hate me.  UGH.  But what about all of the other women there?  Were they awkward too?  Of course not- they were all amazing.

One lady had just come from the gym, and looked so athletic.  One was helping the little kids with crafts and was just so friendly.  One had the prettiest red curly hair.  Another one was clearly giving very thoughtful advice to her friend.  They were all just so amazing.  Then there was me- awkward, slightly fat, spit up stained, one unshaven leg ME.  A total mess, with all of the aforementioned flaws, plus 9,000 others.  Why am I such a disaster and everyone else is so amazing?

The answer, of course, is that they are not amazing.  Or maybe they are.  Who knows.  They could be terrible human beings.  But for whatever reason, the first thing I look for in THEM is the good.  The first thing and only thing I look for in ME is the bad.  I would never look at someone and think they are fat, or messy, or loud.  I don't go over to someone's house and decide that they are a bad person because their TV is dusty.  So why do I think those things about myself?  Why do I compare myself to some mystical version of myself that has never existed?  The Mary-Ellen that carries a unicorn while running a marathon through a field of four leaf clovers?  The non federally imprisoned Martha Stewart Mary-Ellen?  Those people don't exist.

Someday, I will start giving myself the benefit of the doubt and stop comparing myself to people I know nothing about.  People who are probably just as self conscious as I am.  People who could be serial killers, but MAN, they have some nice shoes on today!  Somewhere, in a women's prison camp, there is probably someone saying "Wow, I really wish I was just like Mary-Ellen!  She has it all."  And that crazy, hooch-drinking former prostitute is right!  I do have it all.  But that jumpsuit does wonders for her complexion.  I wish I had a nice complexion like that.  DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!