Greetings.
Here let me wail: where does the time go? Jeepers creepers, it all seems to get sucked in a vortex of sitting and computing and working; or else driving around fruitlessly on "errands" which are more correctly defined as purchasing trips for food and bathroom items and other things, plus the eternal twin Sisyphean boulders of recycling and laundry which relate to the hamster wheel of consumerism we're all on. The third time-eater is of course relaxing, which I cannot wail about. It's more a prolonged sigh of how lucky I am, that helps put the wailing in perspective.
Here is what has happened in the past two-three weeks.
1. Laying in bed feeling sorry for myself with strep throat seemed like the perfect time to update my professional website. Upon arrival, however, it struck me that everything about it no longer seemed relevant to who I was or what I actually do for money these days. Hence, I've decided to re-brand and re-envision myself in the realm of Business. New name, new look, slow building of a new network, one ring to rule them all.
2. After parrying inquiries from friends and family members on what exactly I was planning to do with the house anyway?, it occurred to me that it may also be a good time to re-brand on the domestic front. I live in a rural idyll. I have explored my forested 19-acre swath exactly three times since moving here six years ago. I appreciate the privacy and the de facto bird/frog sanctuary.
It occurs to me, however, as I marvel at the immutability of my mortgage line of credit no matter how diligently I make my payments, that I will never pay off this house. And I don't need all this space for my occasional bare-ass suntanning or for the hounds to run willy-nilly, and I don't need all this house except to store my ex-partner's stuff. My burgeoning collection of antique meat-grinders does not take up very much room at all. In summary, keeping the property is indulgent and even nostalgic, and while I've been easy on myself the last couple of years post-break up I reckon it's as good a time as any to move on.
I'm slapping a new roof on in the next couple of weeks, paying someone to mow my lawn and do the hated year-work in recognition of my stubborn inertia (and the fact that my lawnmower repair-man is an amiable mouth-breather who is treating my little MTB like a life-time rebuild project). I have two friends I'd love to sell it to, but if they prove unserious I will enlist the dark forces of the real estate agency and just get 'er done.
I had planned on then moving to one of two downtown areas within my fair valley, buying a cool old house and fixing it up. It was an even toss-up between the two communities, as they each have their merits. However, I have been asked--at first implicitly, and then explicitly--to consider one of those areas more seriously. Yes, it seems like only a few moons ago we were giggling over the joys of fuckbuddery. Now we are shyly alluding to a time when we will live together. Down the road, of course, but we find ourselves surprisingly comfortable with the notion. He is, always has been, and I trust will continue to be, a spectacular peach of a man. It is a lovely thing to wake up next to someone who instantly puts a smile on one's face.
Anyway. We are two hard-asses with soft hearts, deep within the throes of serious Like. I met the kid and she's quite a charmer. All continues apace.
3. While I have now made the acquaintance of the child, I am adamant that if he and I are ever to make one together, it will be planned. No little accidents to lock one into position, thanks. Nope, if we ever go down the road of contemplating procreation, it will have to be an overt commitment. Hence the IUD now firmly ported into my uterus.
After researching my options, I decided on the Mirena. This small, innocuous object promises to deflect sperm, lessen my period and not make me nutty/fat/moony with hormones. My gynecologist recommended I shop around as it costs $350-$400. I end up in (yes) Wal-Mart last week. Along with the wooden coat hangers (shades of Joan Crawford, t'is true) I was there to purchase I also pick up an ice cream maker and a $358 IUD.
Shortly thereafter, I realize I would have accrued an unimaginable bounty of Optimum points had I got it at Shopper's. The grim-faced Wal-mart pharmacist assistant does not let me return it, as it has left the store.
"How do you know it's left the store?" I ask, thinking it would be quite reasonable to lie and say I've been whiling away the hours in housewares. She dead-eyes me and sweeps the counter, "I mean here the store. We can't be responsible for people tampering with product."
On the one hand, I agree that this is a liability issue. On the other, the Mirena comes in an enormous sealed box. It turns out it is also packaged in shrink-wrapped plastic inside. Tampering would be evident, for Pete's sake. I brood over the defeat of common sense and my foregone Optimum points for the rest of the day.
However, the day approaches for its insertion. Today! I learned a few things: one, IUDs are not traditionally used by women who have not given birth, as their cervixes are relatively tight. Turns out I'm clenched harder than a 'Fight the Power' fist. Two, that the IUD is best inserted during a period, when the cervix is "softer" and there is no chance of an existing pregnancy. Great, except I was only on day 3 of my period, and when my clenched cervix is dilated the very nice, attractive male gynecologist inform me "Hmmm, your cervix was so tight it was, um, holding back...what looks to be quite a bit of what appears to be...quite old blood."
I can only murmur "How nice that must be for you..." by way of a weak apology, as by now I've been induced into a prolonged cramp. Oh. Oh! I breathe a few whistley breaths and tell myself it will soon be over. And it is, it's soon docked deep inside me and I'm free to go. Except it becomes very apparent walking to the car that my fight-the-power cervix and previously unviolated uterus are ganging up on the IUD. I picture an interuterine Wall-E trying to make friends with a hostile environment.
The interminable drive home is spent encouraging myself not to veer into oncoming traffic while my reproductive organs wrestle with the feisty Mirena. I alternately low like an ailing cow and quietly hate-talk fellow drivers slowing my homeward progress to bed/hot water bottle/NOW.
My main thought as I stagger into bed with the trusty hot water bottle is one of dismay. I wake up after a 90-minute nap of the dead and the cramped to find the war is over, and the body has grudgingly settled around the intruder. I hope this is not just a stalemate, but a lasting peace.
I rebound enough to go for a run to celebrate my newfound infertility, and envision long relaxing soaks in jizz-filled jacuzzis. Jizzcuzzis. Actually, no. But it will be nice to not have to worry about where the chips fall; and not to bleed out like a True Blood extra every 24 days.
4. My Mexican Dumpster rat JoJo gashed his thigh. I conceded it merited fixing, as it was deep and the size of a toonie. $287 later (80% of a Mirena) he was given back to me with 5 staples and a head-cone that rendered him immobile and terrified. I was told firmly that it must be left on, and that there were terrible consequences to the dog licking or teasing his wound.
After two hours of watching a mildly sedated JoJo stand stock-still with fear because of the cone, I removed it. After a failed attempt to fashion him a little anti-lick sweater, I now let him cavort around cone-less and unprotected. Today he rolled in wild animal shit to celebrate. Oh well. He looks fine, and is gobbling his twice-daily antibiotic with no hesitation (he also steals pineapple rinds out of the compost and consumes them frantically while I half-heartedly tell him to drop it, drop it...) In short, while prone to abrasions he is indestructible.
5. My car cost me about two and a quarter Mirenas last week. Subarus, while undeniably cool--that's right, UNDENIABLY COOL--are horrendously expensive to repair. And I need new glasses as I'm currently making do with the owly pair I had in yes, university (Class of '95) since one of lenses in my more recent pair popped out and broke in two. Expected cost: two Mirenas.
In short, this leads me to believe that everything costs at least a Mirena these days. Cuantos mirenas cuesta eso? Ah well.
Tomorrow I am attending a full-day of First Aid in my strange odyssey of Becoming a More Useful Person, so good night. May your uterus be at peace.
GR
27 May 2011
03 May 2011
That's Just the Toxins Leaving Your Body, Dear
A couple of weeks of worldly significant happenings has just happened by: Royal Wedding: the bride wore too much blush, in my books. Collective yawn, please. Osama shot...and buried at sea? Way to put to rest to any conspiracy theories, America. What, no Osama pelt mounted in the Oval Office? A federal election that was decisive, if nothing else.
And tonight, checking my scalp for dandruff (check), a grey hair noted. Eek. I recall having a few whities (blondies?) in my mid-twenties, and then nothing. Each undyed year has seen a deepening of the brown. It had to happen one day, I suppose. This is no silver strand, but a bonafide grey. Irregular kinky, erratic pointy bit of charcoal in ye olde mane. With a slight smattering of dandruff as distraction.
Jesus. I feel like I've aged 5 years these last 5 months. A long haul of rude health for most of '09-'10 evaporated in early '11, with cold after cold followed by fucking-I-shit-you-not strep throat this last week. So much for dodging a bullet at the Easter egg hunt surrounded by kidlets. One of them must have slipped a small infested finger into my fruit salad when I wasn't looking.
I always blame the children, of course. If it weren't for children, no one would be sick. They're just lucky they serve other purposes. Though it pains me to see modern parents not take advantage of their offsprings' malleability. Here you have the perfect opportunity to mold your mini-me into a small indentured servant-creature, at least until the surly teen years. You are totally blowing it, in my opinion, dear we-just-want-them-to-be-happy parents. Go figure. And there's so many of the little dears.
This October, we are expected to tick over to seven billion people. Gee, it just seems like yesterday we were celebrating six...oh wait, that wasn't yesterday exactly, but relative to 3.5 million years of human evolution, eleven years is close.
Before your inner Malthusian starts clutching its cheeks and screaming like a Munchian, however, contemplate that we are now standing in the shadow of the population bomb's mushroom cloud. In 20 or 30 or even 40 years max, we should start to see a decline. And let's say in that time the rate of growth has eased, so that at 2050 we're at 9 billion earthlings versus the 11 billion we could be if we kept replenishing our stock as zealously as we are today. Which we won't. It's already started, and if nothing else it's awesome to think about having absently daily-lifed through so many likely zeniths for humanity: peak oil, peak regeneration of the species, peak income gap (hopefully).
These grandiose ruminations may seem disproportionate to the facts, and nothing but the facts, ma'am. One, tomorrow is mother's day, and set aside the usual treacle of the occasion to pay homage to the women you are and know. The majority of you are doing the best you can under the circumstances, and for that I salute you. I took my mum out to dinner and a movie a day early, because really, no matter how old or cool or quiet your mum may be, all she really craves is a date with her kid(s).
Two, all the pisspoor health and pus-throat and greying locks and one-sided Wolverine growth (over which, armed with tweezers, I now keep a vigilant watch) are making me feel my years, finally. Luckily, I have the chin acne of a 16-year old boy (which prompted my mum to hand me a tube of Prosacea, thanks), so the overall effect is still somewhere between Miss and Ma'am. My window for ever being feted by a natural born on Mother's Day is ever-shrinking, which somehow doesn't phase me (not being the maternal kind nor delusional enough to imagine that I am all of a sudden twinging because I should be) but is still curious, none the same.
Three, I spent this weekend visiting my sister and her two kids, and although they can be whiny, noisy and demanding little sons of guns (not to mention incorrigible communal food-touchers, which I really cannot abide) it must be admitted they can be funny and charming and sweet as well. Whether it's my 7-year old nephew dancing jerkily to Florence and the Machine in his underoos and grandma's fuzzy red slippers (before inevitably sliding out on the slick wooden floor and bonking his head), or my 5-year old niece declaring in the upscale garden store she wants a metallic pink tape measure of her very own...so...so she can measure her head, they can be a tickle.
That, coupled with all my dear friends' eccentric and endearing broods and the Man's own half-progeny now wriggling around town, and it makes me grudgingly declare myself a friend to the little folk, despite their numerous diseases and propensity for ear-splitting orca-sounds. As their friend, I wonder about their future. I hope for them, and hope to even start doing more/anything to make it better for them.
So now that I've declared my intentions to be honourable and the friendship as "on", could you please please please stop making me sick? Or maybe, my little friends, what you're doing is simply prepping me for the pandemic we're apparently long overdue for as a race. In which case, thank you.
Happy momma (& mommaboy) day!
Daughter Gretchen
And tonight, checking my scalp for dandruff (check), a grey hair noted. Eek. I recall having a few whities (blondies?) in my mid-twenties, and then nothing. Each undyed year has seen a deepening of the brown. It had to happen one day, I suppose. This is no silver strand, but a bonafide grey. Irregular kinky, erratic pointy bit of charcoal in ye olde mane. With a slight smattering of dandruff as distraction.
Jesus. I feel like I've aged 5 years these last 5 months. A long haul of rude health for most of '09-'10 evaporated in early '11, with cold after cold followed by fucking-I-shit-you-not strep throat this last week. So much for dodging a bullet at the Easter egg hunt surrounded by kidlets. One of them must have slipped a small infested finger into my fruit salad when I wasn't looking.
I always blame the children, of course. If it weren't for children, no one would be sick. They're just lucky they serve other purposes. Though it pains me to see modern parents not take advantage of their offsprings' malleability. Here you have the perfect opportunity to mold your mini-me into a small indentured servant-creature, at least until the surly teen years. You are totally blowing it, in my opinion, dear we-just-want-them-to-be-happy parents. Go figure. And there's so many of the little dears.
This October, we are expected to tick over to seven billion people. Gee, it just seems like yesterday we were celebrating six...oh wait, that wasn't yesterday exactly, but relative to 3.5 million years of human evolution, eleven years is close.
Before your inner Malthusian starts clutching its cheeks and screaming like a Munchian, however, contemplate that we are now standing in the shadow of the population bomb's mushroom cloud. In 20 or 30 or even 40 years max, we should start to see a decline. And let's say in that time the rate of growth has eased, so that at 2050 we're at 9 billion earthlings versus the 11 billion we could be if we kept replenishing our stock as zealously as we are today. Which we won't. It's already started, and if nothing else it's awesome to think about having absently daily-lifed through so many likely zeniths for humanity: peak oil, peak regeneration of the species, peak income gap (hopefully).
These grandiose ruminations may seem disproportionate to the facts, and nothing but the facts, ma'am. One, tomorrow is mother's day, and set aside the usual treacle of the occasion to pay homage to the women you are and know. The majority of you are doing the best you can under the circumstances, and for that I salute you. I took my mum out to dinner and a movie a day early, because really, no matter how old or cool or quiet your mum may be, all she really craves is a date with her kid(s).
Two, all the pisspoor health and pus-throat and greying locks and one-sided Wolverine growth (over which, armed with tweezers, I now keep a vigilant watch) are making me feel my years, finally. Luckily, I have the chin acne of a 16-year old boy (which prompted my mum to hand me a tube of Prosacea, thanks), so the overall effect is still somewhere between Miss and Ma'am. My window for ever being feted by a natural born on Mother's Day is ever-shrinking, which somehow doesn't phase me (not being the maternal kind nor delusional enough to imagine that I am all of a sudden twinging because I should be) but is still curious, none the same.
Three, I spent this weekend visiting my sister and her two kids, and although they can be whiny, noisy and demanding little sons of guns (not to mention incorrigible communal food-touchers, which I really cannot abide) it must be admitted they can be funny and charming and sweet as well. Whether it's my 7-year old nephew dancing jerkily to Florence and the Machine in his underoos and grandma's fuzzy red slippers (before inevitably sliding out on the slick wooden floor and bonking his head), or my 5-year old niece declaring in the upscale garden store she wants a metallic pink tape measure of her very own...so...so she can measure her head, they can be a tickle.
That, coupled with all my dear friends' eccentric and endearing broods and the Man's own half-progeny now wriggling around town, and it makes me grudgingly declare myself a friend to the little folk, despite their numerous diseases and propensity for ear-splitting orca-sounds. As their friend, I wonder about their future. I hope for them, and hope to even start doing more/anything to make it better for them.
So now that I've declared my intentions to be honourable and the friendship as "on", could you please please please stop making me sick? Or maybe, my little friends, what you're doing is simply prepping me for the pandemic we're apparently long overdue for as a race. In which case, thank you.
Happy momma (& mommaboy) day!
Daughter Gretchen
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