Feeling piggish

So this H1N1 is going around here and I'm sniffling with this nasty-ass sinus headache and feelin' kinda piggish. Is it the swine? Not sure at this point; do I have to have fever? What's the deal? Do common colds still exist? Surely they do.
I'm just trying to keep my family well for the next 5 months...5 months of dark and dreary weather and Vitamin D deficiency and seasonal depression...what? You don't feel the same? Oh, you must live in Santa Monica...Anyway, I have no point; I am just lamenting loss of summer and living for Sunday nights and my only show - Californication. That, with red wine, rich pastas and butternut squash soup is what gets me through the season. Also, a fire in the fireplace, a little snow on the ground, good sweaters and scarves aren't bad either. Boots are cool. Hey, if we can avoid the nasty shit, fall and winter can be bearable...
Cheers!
~R

Wobbly Bits

It was something I never anticipated doing. Before having kids, I judged plastic surgery, especially boob-jobs, claiming that as women, we should reject media ideals and have enough self-worth to not judge ourselves based on some unattainable perfection we see in the pages of Glamour, US Weekly, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. I didn't necessarily love my body, I had perky, size B+ boobs and at that point, the face wasn't a concern. My stomach was sooo flat. It was an awesome stomach, I can say now without sounding full of myself. Cause it's gone. Or should I say, it’s more there now than ever. I guess I felt a bit superior just because unlike so many women, I was actually okay with what god (or whomever) gave me.

Then I had kids. When they say "having a baby changes your body forever," they are not kidding around. After one, I had some difficulty, but after two, it has been all I can do to just get minimally in shape. For two years now, I'm a self-proclaimed exercise whore. I've done Jazzercize, pilates, yoga, treadmills, ellipticals, spinclass, and body combat. I've watched what I ate, but not apparently enough. I still have wobbly bits and honestly, I'm sick of it. I'm sick of working so hard for minimal results. And the frowning that goes along with the frustration of parenting, well that's starting to stick, too, right between the eyes. At least, even after nursing twice, I am still not too dissatisfied with the boobs, although according to social standards, I probably should be. But they're all right to me and the person who matters, my husband. A little lower down these days, but I feel pretty good about them. Heredity does play a role, and apparently, while some women inherit a belly that snaps back to perfect, I inherited boobs that retain at least a boob-like shape despite serving as a human milk machine for two babies. For that, I am thankful. Do not call me ungrateful! I am only bitter, just a little bit, over what they, Things 1 and 2, took from me. And left me with. But of course, hells yes, they are worth it.

I've seen those Dr. shows about liposuction and swore I'd work out until I'm blue in the face before I let someone shove that thing in and out of my fat lumps. It looked disgusting and painful. Not an option. Then, I saw an ad for Smart Lipo one day in a magazine, which is a new, non-surgical method to get rid of fat. They take a needle and inject it in a few places to melt the fat. It's for small areas that, despite good diet and exercise, we can't seem to shake. Perfect for me. In my spontaneous way, I called and made a free consult appointment. I didn't know if I would go through with it, and I had no idea how we could afford it, but I just had to know more. Chris was okay with me checking it out, although he claims to like the little belly and sees no cellulite. Right. Well, hey baby, if Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Love-Hewitt admit they have cellulite, then so can I. Women need to share - our secrets and insecurities instead of being so damned proud. So, if you know how in the hell to get rid of it, for god's sake, share.

When I walk into the clinic, they are friendly. I look around the waiting room and naturally wonder why the other women are there. Most of them are young. One girl is with her dad (at least I hope it's her dad). Boobs for graduation? That’s very popular these days. None of us blatantly look at each other, we just peek. I'm wearing a lime green baby doll tank top and jeans and flip-flops. I wonder how I come off. Probably as boob-job candidate. Whatever, I'll never know.

So they put me in a room with books of photos of surgeries - all of which make me feel a bit better about my unsightly bits. The before-afters weren't all that fabulous and the scars people live with for a boob or a flat belly - Yikes. I undress down to my mis matched underwear and put on the big robe. I examine myself in the huge mirror and think, "Oh well, he's seen worse, judging by those pictures." Although I can see every single nook and cranny of cellulite, worse than in a dressing room mirror, I know it's the lighting. If my lighting at home were like this, I would walk around in this giant robe there instead of my bra and panties. My husband would not run to grab my ass when I walk by, if I looked like this all the time. Lighting is everything right? Here, I see the strategy: once you go in, you will not leave without signing up for something because you suddenly look ten times worse than when you went in. But clothing stores, they really should invest in the most flattering lighting possible in dressing rooms. I guess they didn't get the memo. Anyway, he walks in, little Bee-looking kind of a guy. In his 40s, not intimidating and not attractive. Still, I'm a bit embarrassed. I have a hot younger husband who gropes me regularly and I am embarrassed! It's the lighting, right? "Contrare, mon'frier, it looks like this everywhere" he says when I apologetically say, "I don't look like this at home." I'm almost in tears. It's his business, after all, to make me feel like a piece of wobbly shit so he will make his $3500. I left with the Smartlipo option which he said would not make my stomach flat as it was before, but better. My thighs, they could improve from it. Not to perfect. Whatever that is. A mini-tummy tuck would be best, since my ab muscles have separated due to two pregnancies. After two solid years of Pilates, those bitches still won't grow back together?

So, I left, in tears, heading home to simply starve and exercise myself to an emaciated state, which he told me would reveal the muscle underneath. Surgery - not an option for me. Needles in my stomach, somehow, if they made it flat, I could handle. But apparently there’s no guarantee there. Wow, all I thought I needed was just a little help. Apparently I need a fucking tummy tuck?

Chris was a little furious, and said "That Dr. can go fuck himself. Look at you! You look great! Don't let him do this to you!" I love my husband. How the hell did I get so lucky? But it's not for him. I want that fucking body I used to have and because dammit, it's only going downhill from here if I don't do something about it. Literally, downhill, you know like, gravity. As I've said before, I don't wanna be the one with wobbly bits on the beach, blaming it on "baby weight" with two grade-school kids.

I've decided to keep kicking my own ass with exercise and looking for endermology treatments or something. One of those sweat-wrap things. Something not $2500-3500. After all, I work out for my health, too, and if my tummy was suddenly flat (and scarred), I may slack off, and the working out is good for me.

Have I turned you completely off with my vanity? Are you judging me like I used to judge my friends paying for body parts? Well I want to pay to RID myself of body parts. So sue me.

Or maybe you feel a little sorry for me, at least? Have you thought about it? Whatever the case, are you still there?

Note: I did try one of those whole-body sweat treatments which, if nothing else, shrunk my boobs a little more. But they came back, it was just water weight.

Wobbly,
~R

Life: All there is, the most fragile thing there is

In this college town, news travels fast and there are about 3, rather than 6, degrees of separation. I met this woman with a sweet face and an even sweeter personality when I first visited Izzy's elementary school this summer. She is the PTO president, and as she walked me out the door, the fact that I was trying to get a transfer to another school made me think twice. She was so sincere that I wanted to stay there because of her. We didn't get the transfer and I've seen her sweet face several times now that school started but hadn't met her 4 daughters. One, who was in fourth grade, was hit and killed by a car in a crosswalk. Just like that. Gone.

As in most smaller towns (65,000 is small to many), almost everyone knows about it and there is a short video of this girl and people who knew her on the news and going around Facebook. Like you see in movies: a parent is lamenting either loss or just sulking in nostalgia over years gone by, as the kids are running and laughing on the beach, or blowing out birthday candles, or putting on a little play...and the sick demented part of me thinks for a brief second of this possible sadness every time I take a video on my camera. All of our lives look like that through a video camera lens. And they are. Precious. Unique. Remarkable.

When things like this, or not like this, happen; when a life is taken, no matter how short or long, it almost shuts me down. I think of the people in that person's life and how they are going to go on and it takes a few days for me to shake it. And when it's a child, now that I'm a parent, I can barely allow myself to envision it happening. I cannot watch movies that deal with family tragedy of any kind. I don't know how deep empathy can go, but I have it, to almost a fault. I think of how we spend our lives trying to keep them alive. Just keep them alive. That's our number one responsibility. And these parents, that morning, were heading to a relay event for kids and had no idea that their lives would be shattered in a second flat. They have 3 other kids, and have to go on, and from what I gather, they are spiritual or religious people, and I'm sure they'll rely on that here. Makes me realize why humans seek that. I tend to look to meditation and yoga and all that new age shit for my sanity, but that's what we're all seeking in different ways. Seeking serenity. Searching for a way to divert our knowledge of the fact that everything can change in a split second and try to fucking enjoy it anyway. For some it's drugs and alcohol, because numbing those thoughts seems like the easiest way.

I know I'm a but morbid and cynical and that's how I feel right now. Like life is just some cruel joke to see how much suffering people can handle. And then some, they never see a day of suffering. Is it karma or is it the luck of the draw? Don't ask me.

Now, I think I should quit rambling and take my sweet little dancin boy on a date and enjoy this exact moment, and the next one, and the next one, because none of them are not coming back.

~R

and now, Narcissism

PART II(from previous post)
Now, here's the Big One. I alienated a friend of 4 years thanks to the good ole FaceBook. I'm not sure at this point for how long, and why I waited this long to vent about it is beyond.
She, the friend, left a short, harmless post on my FB page that said, "Nerd alert" in response to my post begging for writing/editing work. I was trying to put Facebook to some actual use - networking. I was like, whatever, and went to her page and said this:
"Maybe you didn't get the memo that facebook is not only for narcissistic pursuits;)!"
What would you think? I considered it two fairly good friends, both smartasses and a little wild-child, fucking with each other a bit. I know for a fact that if I had put it on my friend S's page, she would have come back "fuck you bitch" and we would be having some drinks the next day and that would be the end of it.
Well, not so in this instance. This friend called me. I was in the shower, so she left a message, an angry one about the word narcissism. And a footnote message stating "if I were going to say something hateful I would NOT post it on Facebook." I called back and left her a VM stating I was surprised that she was truly upset and I in no way intended to alienate a friend that morning, and was just trying to be clever and smartass. I thought we were friends enough to do that.
Now, I did think my statement was quite clever, and as a writer, we always give ourselves a little pat on the back for that. I did NOT think this friend, who's a little crazy, and I mean that in a good way, like crazy fun, crazy wild, would be offended by this N word. Oh man, was she. And apparently, after my two additional texts saying I love her and would never mean to offend her, has not spoken to me. She has spoken to my husband, who told her to get over it, but not me...

However, I did reiterate the fact that Facebook is in fact a platform for narcissists everywhere, including yours truly. I don't think this is a much opposed school of thought. I mean, give the people a free website to post photos and speak their mind, to only people they let into their little world? Hells yeah, we'll take it! it's like a lifetime of a High School web page, it'll keep us young and outspoken for ever. Until someone, supposed "friend," confronts or questions us. Grandmas are on there, saying shit like, "I love me some Pierce Brosnon" and shit. It's INSANE!

But I can't stop. I find it useful to keep in touch with distant friends through photos and little messages, but talking to your neighbors and locals there instead of on the phone or in person is just further deteriorating all of freaking humanity and communication in general!

Who's with me???
One more question: why is that dooce chick so cool? Or is she still there xcuz i havent checked but I suppose so since she is the family income...does she even have music on her site? specifically Rufus?
Whatevs

~R

Starbucks, Baby Hay-Seuss and ...Narcissism

PART 1 (Come back tomorrow for Part II! It's even better!)
Hey there my 3 loyal readers, what's shakin'? I know, I know, not much must be shakin' up in my world or I'd be writing about it, right? Well, blame Facebook, although I've been getting into trouble on there so I've also been avoiding it as much as possible, even if it's resorting to "going offline" and being a lurker, which all of us in blogland so despise and find creepy. Cause they are. But really, I have gotten into trouble, once for mentioning Religion. Just the word for some people creates this crazy defensive outlash. And it's not like I said something so wrong. I should have learned my lesson and keep my philosophical musings reserved for a place where mostly like-minded people go: my blog! Here's what I said:

"I find it interesting that every.single.time. I'm sitting in Starbucks [and I am a lot], I hear a sermon."

Now, the fact that every time I am sitting there in that particular Starbucks summoning words on my computer, I hear a couple few people having a little meeting of the minds about the Sweet Baby Hay-Seuss, that is truth. And yes, I find it strange, a coincidence, or what-have-you, but I must realize that although it's a bit of a progressive little city, I am still sitting in the Bible Belt. This must go on everywhere and I only frequent Starbucks during the day and restaurants where people drink at night (this is a sin). Oh, and that "at night" would be a maximum of 4 nights per month, if I'm lucky, so I don't sin very often. So, I don't even find it offensive, the preaching. I just...find it. Every time. That's what's called an observation. Like if someone were talking about....about...Madonna, every time I'm at Starbucks. I mean, she's almost as famous as Hay-Seuss, right? Yes, the people are always speaking loudly...for some reason...but I can put in my earbuds and listen to some Black Sabbath, pull my black hoodie over my head, and I'll be fine.

So how did I get into trouble, you ask? Well, a local acquaintance of mine popped up on my page real quick-like, and under my post asked, "Really, how so?" (like as in how did I find it interesting?)...I find this to be a bit condescending, but I also find people calling me by my full name (as opposed to nickname), ending a question with my name, and saying, "How's that workin' out fer ya?" to be offensive. That's just me.
I then visited her page and said I didn't mean to offend. I did not elaborate. She then popped in my chatbox and started telling me about her church as why it was so cool. And why, and why, and why. She sent me an inbox message, also, demanding some elaboration on my Starbucks post. I deleted it the post. Again, I told her no offense intended. We haven't interacted since, probably mutually staying away, probably for the best...I won't be converting her to my Pagan ways and she won't be dragging me into her cool church. All is well.

On another note,this kindergarten thing I've been ranting about, I guess it's turning out to be notsobad, and no one cares about me or my blog name, after all. So I'm comin back, bitches, as
momwhodrinksandcusses.
~R

Gawd, I'm an Asshole!

Gawd, I'm such an asshole. To complain about anything is really quite obnoxious, I'm finding these days. Every day, I learn about someone else's misfortune and think, how in the hell do I have the right to complain about having to get out of bed, or that i can't afford to get my roots done, or that my kid has an obsession with a certain shirt? I don't! I'm such an asshole! Just found out an old friend who I'm "friends" with on Facebook (yes, FB, the devil), has a kid with Cystic Fibrosis and had never broadcasted it. It just popped up in light of all the health care debate, and there was another whose daughter died last year from childhood leukemia, and I didn't know this for weeks after we "befriended." And the funeral we went to recently for a 60 year-old man who was all-organic, lived off the land and not an alcoholic or drug user, who died of liver cancer, pretty quickly after diagnosis. And, I read a story about a little girl whose parents fought for her life for over a year with a rare disease and didn't win, all the while having this amazing attitude.

I've done this before, but it always takes some kind of eye-opener, and so now 'm doing it again! Let's all just quit our bitchin' lest we haves us a DAMNED good reason, and I know some of you out there who do, and I should check up on you more often. Glad you're still out there!

Hey, do you need a drink now too? Go visit le wine blog!
http://wine4poorsihfolk.blogspot.com
~R

How Do You Cope?

I don't know how I used to conjure up all of the B.S. that this blog has seen in the last year and a half, but I'm flat drawing a blank. All I can think up these days is what I have to do in a day.

I'm Becoming one of those moms who watches her language (at least during daylight hours) and cuts her hair so as to not come off as a lamb in sheep's clothing (or is it the other way around???). Alas, I'm the parent of an elementary school student, and still adjusting. Slowly. The daily 6:30 wakings are unwelcome, as my 2 year-old was always coerced back to sleep in the mornings with a little milk, at least until 7 or so. This reality bites, in some ways, but in others, I guess it's alright. I am forced to behave myself more at night now, and feel pressured to get tons and tons of things accomplished by 3 PM everyday. So that can't be all bad. Days go by reaaalll fast, and I'm trying to stop myself every now and then and go back to being grateful. Note to self: get that damned grateful symbol tattooed on arm as have planned for 6 months...like I have time and money for another tattoo...
Anyway, if anyone is out there, how do you cope? With it all?
Over and out
~R

I'm a Product of the 70s and look how fabulous I turned out!

I think maybe Iz starting kindergarten is the answer to finalizing my memoir. See? It had to serve another purpose because my kid already knows anything they can throw at her. Right? Anyway, there has been this element missing, the one that kindof ties it all together and now, I think I might have the key to unlock it. It's something in my childhood and its funny and its lighthearted but probably totally dysfunctional but I think I'm going to pinpoint it now. Or soon. Because no matter how much you write about your past, you still forget, repress, omit things.

Izzy starting school is bringing my what I call "angst-less" childhood back on a daily basis, and making me think that if only I can give it to her as good as I had it back in the 70s, the kid will be alright. It's only been a week, a very odd one, and at this point time's gonna tell. I'm finding myself being more wrapped up in "mothering" than ever and leaving my own pursuits last (like late at night, like right now). I find myself raising my hand to be "homeroom mom" and to help make copies and Gawd, I hope I don't lose myself. But this is an important time, and I refuse to be unaware of what's going on in the place that takes care of my kid for six hours a day. Hopefully, I won't be the one who they're all whispering about because I'm pushing for more than a 15 minute recess, for foreign language, or Gawd forbid, I wear a tank top.

Now look, it's past my curfew 11 minutes. Good-night.

PS:
Susan made me question my dilemma: momwhodrinksandcusses or therebelmom? Which sounds less, I dunno, offensive? Still haven't found time to change the address. Too busy stalking playground.

The End of the World as We Know It

I still haven't found the time to change the actual address of this blog, yet school has begun, and so has my fear that the PTO moms, whom, whether I ever thought I'd say this or not, I will be involved with, will be seeking out dirt on me, like that I drinkandcuss, for instance. Paranoia? yes.

So yeah, my Baby started Kindergarten today and I know now that I am not the only mom who cries and stalks her kid at recess. BTW, when did recess get cut down to 15 minutes a day? I recall two 30-minute sessions, at least. Of course, that was a long, long, long time ago. Like, back when we ran out after the dismissal bell and were free to roam the streets. As of 3 o'clock, I was on my own to spot my moms white T-bird with burgundy trim, and if she was late, I would just sit on the steps of the school alone, and pout until she got there. (This only happened once.) No traffic cops, no orange vest and no signs. Now the doors are locked and parents are more involved, and I'm grateful for that, really I am. I don't know how my mom surrendered to the school system, as over-protective as she was. If I had kids in the 70s I would have had to home-school, or camp out in the playground.

So, yeah, I'm a little bummed about my baby going off for 6 hours a day to be at the mercy of the System, the classroom of 75% boys who had BETTER NOT bully my baby, and of course her sweet cute 23 year-old teacher (who really is adorable and Iz will love). Probably will like her more than she likes her momma. Oh, look at that, the time has passed quickly, gotta go in 30.

I'm still in need of advice on changing blog address but keeping you WONDERFUL 13 readers, so throw it at me! I still haven't googled it yet, maybe I'll get to that before They are onto me.

So, here's to a new age, growing up, all the way up, and liking it.;) But that doesn't mean no rock ' n roll or no tank tops, right?

~R

My New Persona slash help me

I've changed my blog name, for kindergarten-related purposes. A bit more subtle, ya think? Maybe not. But anyway, I'm apparently still a bit blog-tarded and couldn't figure out to get a new domain and keep my MULTITUDE of followers (thanks all 12 of you!!!), and let people know it's changed, so after great pains of exporting-importing, I just went in and changed the name to therebelmom and kept the address. Not sure if this will accomplish my goal, since the only way to locate the blog is thru the address...hmmmm. Any help out there?

Dammit, now I'm really irritated.
~R