It was just a hiatus, turns out.
Try as I might I can’t stay away from the call of the blank page and I need as many formats as I can get, apparently, so I can:
And there’s just something so un-Wordpress about Tumblr.
In true calamity fashion, I’ve just completed a seven page paper for tomorrow night’s class. Don’t let it seem like I might even be ahead of myself. That shit would wait for tomorrow afternoon if I didn’t have to work. Just pending some printing drama and the absence of every stapler in the world, I’m exactly where I always find myself twenty-four hours before a paper or project of any magnitude is due.
I caught myself thinking it really wouldn’t matter so much if I got a C or a D in my Cultural Anthropology class, so I long as I collected another three units toward the 5482482148239712 remaining.
In two days we end the five month stay in the smallest room of my parents’ house and unload our storage unit into a sparkly new condo. To summarize what it’s been like living with seven others plus two Jack Russells, two cats, a turtle and a Beta fish, I’ll keep it light:
…in all honesty, the Beta totally didn’t deserve that.
-CJ
Soon enough I missed the west coast and redacted my statement on never flying ever, ever, ever again. And I was running low on diapers. I was dropped at the airport in Orlando, armed with slightly more plane travel knowledge than I’d had the week before, which doesn’t count for much. The stand-by flight that was to get me to LAX in one shot was booked solid, BUT OF COURSE. My only option was to wait three hours, hit a flight to Newark, transfer planes and head straight to Los Angeles. It was like someone tried to sum up a massive trigonometry formula in a short sentence. DOES NOT COMPUTE. So I was like, that is hilarious, please step aside ‘cause I’m going home now.
This is so much like my early college experience. How do so many people DO this? How do they know what to do and where to go and when to do it and how to do it and in what order. I have nearly thrown my hands up and given up trying on so many occasions. And then I pop a Zoloft and skedaddle to class.
Turns out they were serious and I was stuck. One might have thought the apocalypse had shown its first signs of dawning if they were to hear the voicemail on my parents’ answering machine (‘member those?). It was all sniffles and choked sobs. I was being held against my will and would never, ever break free from the evils of air travel. Woe was me and no one else. No one had ever experienced such horror in all their days. Why did I ever leave the state? Ad nauseam.
After a month or so of waiting in the terminal, I boarded for beautiful Newark, New Jersey. I was warned that I’d need to rush to my next flight as it was departing very shortly after it landed and I stabbed the informant with my eye daggers and also a nail file. It was a short flight north and it involved a small, wet sandwich. The flight attendants were of the nicest variety, stocking me up on a little extra juice for Kiddo and letting me bring the carseat on board with me to sit in empty space next to me. The nightmare began again when we touched down in Newark and I was ready to sprint to the next gate with no direction. Maybe the panic on my face was so physically apparent and maybe the person I asked did not trust this wild-eyed child with a smaller child on her hip. She used a radio to call for a gentleman driving a little golf cart to pick me up and rush me to where I needed to be. When he arrived I loaded my backpack onto the seat of his cart and he drove away. I don’t know if he thought it was the weight of my body or if he just hated me but he drove away. With my backpack. And y’all… I sat down on the floor in the airport and I cried.
It isn’t my proudest moment. But it’s up there.
The same lady that had called for backup found the calamity shaped heap with the stunning blue-eyed baby and quickly called the gentleman again. She called him with a vengeance. And he came back, sheepish, and drove Kiddo and I with every last one of our possessions over to the next gate at a whopping 11 miles an hour.
The flight to LA was quiet, dark and calm. It was deep breathing and relief. It was all almost over.
And then Kiddo pooped. And the thing about her having this one last rank diaper of the trip was that the unexpected three hour delay before New Jersey had utilized the last of our travel supply of diapers.
An aside: I do not enjoy corn. Only within the last year have I taken to liking it on the cob. My kid loves her some corn but I didn’t know that yet because it was just not in our kitchen. While in Florida my aunt fed Kiddo some corn. A lot, apparently. And this is how I learned, and I am very serious here, that the whole corn-in-your-shit thing was not a big joke.
At this point I’d changed 450,000 dirty diapers though never in the not-so-generous space of an airplane changing table. Imagine my surprise when I opened that diaper FULL of corn. The initial shock of it was almost enough to LOL in the confines of that rank little bathroom. She couldn’t continue sitting in this mess but I had absolutely no options. So I changed her into some fresh, footed pajamas, went back to our seats and wrapped her up in the tiny square of an airline blanket in hopes that it would not be used to absorb anything but if it was? Don’t bother me to care. Had we run out of diapers at any other point in the trip, I simply couldn’t have handled it. The running theme here is that I couldn’t handle much of anything. But we were going home now and I’d be damned if there was any stress left in me.
We descended into LA and I was so relieved that I nearly burst into tears. I hobbled around with our belongings through the airport until I reached Josh’s arms. Fucking home.
And then Kiddo, perched on my hip, peed right through those pajamas and all down my side.
I didn’t travel again until the summer of 2008 and a few times since then. It’s the easiest thing in the world. I am without the melodrama and I used up all my freak-outs during that initial trip. Unexpected layovers and last minute changes are met with a smile. I love to fly. Kiddo continues to be the easiest child in the entire world to take anywhere.
In March of 2004, I decided to fly to Florida to visit my cousin. We’re just about the same age and we’d been built-in best friends since we could crash our walkers into one another while our parents drank beer on the patio. Her family had moved across the country on account of my uncle’s job transfer and I’d yet to visit her there.
The thing was, and there were some things, I had never flown before. And I had fourteen month old. That I was going to take with me. And I was eighteen without a friggin’ clue about anything.
WOO!
This is much like now though the difference is that now I know I don’t have a clue. No one told me when I was eighteen, “Uh, hey friend? Those little anecdotes about life in this society that one acquires through time and experience? YAIN’T GOT ANY.”
Kiddo looked about like this at the time. Do you just die? I die.
My mom’s best friend worked for an airline at the time so I purchased an inexpensive flight through her. There were going to be a couple hiccups but with prior knowledge and planning they would be no thang. The flight to Orlando would layover in Houston but I could stay on the plane and wait for everyone to re-board. (This was incorrect.) The flight home was a stand-by flight but it wasn’t even half way full so it would be a non-issue. (This was incorrect.)
My dad and my boyfriend delivered Kiddo and I (and my duffel bag, backpack, carseat and diaper bag) to the LAX labyrinth. It was a teensy tiny LOT overwhelming. I had kind of forgotten that I tended to get hysterical and anxious when I had to part with Josh (doth thee have some issues, Calamity?) and I became an inconsolable mess. Once inside, Josh was allowed to help me carry my baggage (as he’s done for almost a decade now, ho ho ho) until the security point where I took over and managed to maneuver one thousandy pounds plus a living, moving (adorable, chubby) being through the metal detectors and the like. Again: first time. I didn’t know I had to take my jacket and shoes off and was impatiently told to step aside and do so. In the process, I set Kiddo down and she promptly began crawling away from me. I was already exhausted, heart racing, hot and wanted someone to hold my hand. But I remained calm and collected NOT AT ALL.
Unlike most aspects of this trip, I had experienced a metal detector/baggage scanner situation once before. My mom and I went to court when I was but a wee unpregnant teen for a traffic ticket I’d received. We were sent back to the car three times. Giant novelty safety pins (why?), disposable cameras and Swiss army knives? Not allowed in court.
My belongings went onto the belt and the kid and I went through the archway o’ safety. My favorite black jacket never came off that conveyer belt, may it rest in peace. Onward to the boarding area, a kind gentleman chased me down to return the trail of items that were spilling out of my back pocket including cash and lipstick. Why, thank you, may I wipe mine and my toddler’s snot trails on your sleeve?
By the grace of something holy, we made it on that goddamn plane. But I could not stop crying. Despite my efforts at discretion, my seatmate asked if I would be alright and offered comforting platitudes. There would be nothing to worry about, she promised. She did this all the time. But being thousands of feet in the air was not a concern for me. It was being lost and confused and lonely and full to the brim with regret for trying to be a big girl and thinking I could just go across the country with my baby.
In Houston, we touched down and I was asked to exit the plane. I asked if I could just wait in my seat but there would be none of that. I stayed as close to the gate as I could, knowing that if I even looked away for a second it would disappear and I would be trapped in Texas forever and ever.
The plane nor the path to it disappeared on me. I took my seat with the angelic one-year-old and we set out for Orlando.
My cousin found me quickly in the airport when we landed. We waited for my checked baggage and it seemed that (one of) my worst nightmares had, of course, come true. I knew that I couldn’t trust my luggage all out of sight and tucked away under the plane. The carseat did not make it. It was hanging out in Houston, not being sat in by any adorable diapered butts.
We risked the drive to Cocoa Beach with Kiddo in my lap. When we arrived I swore off travel forever.
To be continued with: New Jersey, corn & pee!
Yesterday at work I rolled up a fat set of blueprints; bear hugged them in an attempt to get a rubber band around the roll, and sliced a flap of finger skin wide open. I smeared blood on my jeans and later, my lunch of leftover meatloaf met the other leg. I was like a filthy, small child. Today I tore way too deep into a cuticle (horrible, horrible habit) and bled far too dramatically for such a small cut. I had to ask my boss for more Band-Aids but it seems I’ve already gone through both hers and my stash. Idle hands and shit.
The other day on my lunch break I was performing one of many awful, awful tasks that come with moving (returning my internet modem and various other part and pieces to Time Warner) I walked into an ongoing spat between a righteous customer and an employee who’d simply had more than enough. By the time I arrived they had escalated to a point of no return; the customer service gal going all street on this woman and the woman going all everything-is-your-geedee-fault on the gal. As I quietly (so as to continue eavesdropping) and politely (like a normal human) spoke to someone and signed off on my delivery, a very old woman walked up to my other side and started immediately berating another girl behind the counter. Her bill had INCREASED! AGAIN! And it was JUST RIDICULOUS! She tossed the offending bill across the counter, shaking her head.
It would be a very rare occurrence that the person in customer service had anything to do with what is pissing off one customer so badly. They are doing their job to collect their paycheck, must like the rest of us. They are not laughing manically behind your back and fucking with your account for giggles. Acting like a helpless victim with a horrible attitude is so far beyond acceptable, those irrationals deserve to have their bill increased or service shut off or whatever it is that got them all irate. We are a society above taking out our pain on the wait staff. They are human beings. Mistakes occur. So it goes.
It was really hard to watch and I do not for one second miss working in retail.
Do you know that Farmer’s Insurance jingle? We are Farmers. Bum buh bum bum bum bum! It makes want to stab things, people, myself through the cornea. Maybe because it has interrupted my happy time ska loop on Pandora ten too many times this afternoon. Maybe because it has a brain-grating tone and is slightly infuriating in its simple non-advertising. You tell me nothing with bum-buh-bums!
OH MY GOD ANOTHER COMMERICIAL OF THEIRS JUST CAME ON
It’s the weekend. Calamity OUT.
I’ve had my fair share of piercing experiences; up and down my ears, through my navelbutton, my nipples, my tongue and four total pokes in the nose, all at different times. I’ve ditched most of them. The tongue piercing lasted eight hours before I pulled out the barbell and threw it in the sink. My body rejected one, forcing it out over a short period of time. (All. The. Way. Out. Without me ever having to open the hoop, my body said get the eff out and the ring pushed all the way through my nipple, leaving a straight line scar. Awesome, y/n?)
My pain tolerance is pretty admirable, considering the quantity of needles I’ve had pushed in and out of me and the sensitive skin surfaces I’ve had adorned with ink.
The worst of the worst was ten or eleven years ago when I had my rook pierced by an impatient jerk. (This is not mine.) The stiff cartilage and the shape of the fold made the process difficult for everyone and I couldn’t clench my jaw hard enough as it was happening. I didn’t expect it to hurt that bad and I wouldn’t do it ever again.
The second worst of the worst was when I took my septum piercing out for upward of six months and decided I wanted to put it back. (Also not mine.) I am unable to maneuver almost all jewelry, most especially any sort of piercing jewelry that is not for my earlobes. I went down to the nice piercing specialist man that I’ve seen a few times now and asked that he do it for me. It was supposed to be simple but see, and this should be common knowledge though it totally eluded me, the hole will shrink when not occupied by a piece of jewelry. I had thought it would slip right back in, having worn the piercing consistently for a year or so. NOT SO MUCH. NOT SO MUCH AT ALL, TURNS OUT. He had to stretch the hole back open to accommodate the jewelry. Put simply, it felt like the front of my face had exploded and then was lit on fire. (I used to wear six gauges in my ears and getting to that point never, ever hurt this bad.) I went straight to a nearby dive bar and ordered something stiff to soothe my aching existence. I told someone an hour or so later that it still felt like someone was holding a lighter directly up to the skin.
In conclusion, we understand that both the rook piercing and the stretching of skin after a piercing has shrunk hurts really, really bad, yes? Any questions?
On Saturday afternoon, I didn’t know that my plan was to combine both horrors.
My dumbass finally got around to putting back in my ear piercings since my surgery last March. (The rook and one near the top of my ear, close against my head.) I met with a different, though equally nice piercing specialist and gave him my hoops. He inserted a taper into my rook without warning and I started losing my shit. Writhing and grinding and squinting through the immense pain. He asked that I hold still and insisted he knew how horrible it felt but I was “doing great” and the like. (I was doing the opposite of great. An infant would have been more tolerable than me.) Because I had worn this earring for so long, I thought it would slip back in. WRONG AGAIN. At my breaking point, something I’ve never had before, I told him I had lost my nerve and to forget it. He explained that the taper was in place, he would just need to insert the jewelry, easy-peesy, and we’re through here. I took a deep breath which he accepted as a green light and in it went. When he confirmed it was done and said it was time to check out the other hole, I said quickly, “Ya know, I never even liked that piercing anyway. Let’s call it a day.”
I still feel like the left side of my head partially exploded. I take Ibuprofen every few hours and put ice delicately against it but it only offers relief for a short period of time.
Thus, booze.
I will never learn.
-CJ
My teacher handed out colored index cards with celebrity names on them. We had to partner up with our randomly chosen celebrity spouse for a quick presentation on fallacies. I got Victoria Beckham, and my “husband,” in the row behind me, was much like a high school freshman in both looks and maturity.
He had no idea who David or Victoria Beckham were. The guy who got Tom Hanks didn’t know who his wife was. There was some confusion but eventually we were all matched and Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes ended up with the odd person out.
That was fun. Presenting fallacy definitions and examples with someone who couldn’t stop giggling at their own ridiculous jokes.
Which sounds an awful lot like me, now that I think about it…
Alright, shutting up on that note. #jerk
A beefed up campus security guard came into the classroom at the end of the evening and asked for a gal by name. He’d tracked her down by way of license plate or parking permit, I assume, because someone had attempted to or succeeded in stealing her catalytic converter. The way her face crumbled broke my heart into a million, tiny pieces. That look of why me tied with what did I do wrong. It is so violating to have your personal belongings stolen from you. Who knows her situation; broke? Without insurance? Borrowing the car from someone else? When I had my Blazer, I had the gall to leave a window cracked open, wrist width, and a thick booklet of CDs were taken right from my driveway, included so many irreplaceable mixes and Introducing Save Ferris, signed by Monique Powell. It was such a sickening, disgusting feeling, seeing my seats adjusted and my personal belongings meddled with. I hardly wanted to get in that car again.
I’m not innocent from what Josh calls “white collar crimes” because women’s razors are fucking overpriced and big money chain stores won’t miss them. But I wouldn’t dare to take someone’s personal shit. Is that hypocritical? I like to think not but I’m open to speculation. In the meantime, my calves remain silky smooth!
-CJ
I canNOT drink like I used to.
This is very sudden. My unusually high tolerance for all sorts of alcohol seems to have shriveled and withered and croaked. A few weekends back, I went to a birthday gathering at a dive bar. I was 6-7 Hefs and 2-3 vodka tonics down when I got to the bar, which might offer explanation of my having vomited everywhere later that evening, but I digress. I took in more beer and a few shots in a celebratory manner for the birthday girl and was completely out of commission for about a week afterward. Life without a gall bladder has an effect after heavy drinking, turns out.
I just used Google to determine if the correct word was afterward or afterword.
I can’t say (or type) afterward without thinking of that soul crushing “Friday” song. Which I will not link. “Sunday comes afterwards.”
Mind-boggling, the badness.
Then I hear that song in Ralph Garman’s McDonald employee voice that he can’t seem to stop doing on the Hollywood Babble-On podcast. Which I will link! Because it is awesome.
I am much like Dug the dog, in the movie Up. SQUIRREL!
Last night I was decided to give in to a draft beer craving and hit a local sports bar with some friends which turned into an all-nighter on a goddamned weeknight. This hangover is one I wouldn’t wish on an enemy. My drinker’s remorse is fucking tangible. I’m glad my cell phone is dead so I can’t scan through any horrific texts I may have sent. Regardless of intake, my hangovers are never usually this bad.
I am not used to feeling like I rolled around in a cement mixer before being run over by it but it seems I might have to get used to it.
Or I could just stop drinking, but. Well. We know how that’ll go.
-CJ
Filed under: wah
This whole ordeal is one year old today.
*is one third relieved*
The only other surgery I’ve ever had was the cesarean when Kiddo was born. Gallbladder surgery is no where near similar but it does have the whole abdominal incision thing going for it. Being that this surgery was actually planned, unlike Kiddo’s birth, and I had already recovered from a surgery that was like gallbladder removal times millfinity, I was not worried or scared or stressed in the slightest. Having it all over with was what I focused on and seriously, it was a damn breeze.
Except, leaving the house before daylight.
And being directed to the wrong hospital.
And having the ditsiest nurse assigned to help me when I first arrived.
And having two piercings stuck in my body.
And having the nurse stick my hand with a needle in the wrong place leading to SO MUCH PAIN.
Really though, so breezy.
My saintly mother picked me up before the sun rose on Friday morning. We headed over to a deserted hospital where the sole employee there directed us a few miles away to a different location. So much for my preparation notes that included the cross streets. Growling ensued on my part, Mom took the reigns and got me to the necessary office to be strapped with the necessary bracelets and to sign away the necessary rights and the like. Up one floor, Mom was given my belongings and asked to wait in the lobby. Nurse Ditzypants put me on a scale and noted my weight in kilograms. As she was writing it down, she forgot the number and asked me if I recalled it. I told her I had no idea why the number I saw was about half my actual weight. I got back on, she giggled and switched to pounds and then asked me again if I remembered what it had said.
I was assigned a bed and a supahsexy paper robe with purple (!) booties. Ditzypants came back when I was decent and jammed a long needle into the back of my hand. I cried out in pain, which is unlike me for a few reasons; needles do not bother me in the slightest and I have a serious (irrational) issue with showing weakness in front of a stranger. I finally had to tell her, “I think you’re doing something wrong, this shouldn’t feel like this.” She agreed and switched to my other hand. I was losing my patience with her and I still had an hour and a half until the surgery. Without explanation, she lowered a tiny TV on an adjustable arm in front of me and put on cartoons before walking away. I looked around, slightly confused and afraid to touch the channels, but immediately irritated by whatever the WotWots are. My mom was brought back up and this is when we met Louie. He was an older man with a thick accent and a shock of white hair. He took my vitals and then raised an eyebrow to two piercings I hadn’t removed. The surgery would require something to be cauterized, which could lead to burns if metal was present in the body. I’d taken out the bellybutton and lobe earrings but couldn’t remove two others, both about ten years old, from my ears. One was in the rook and the other at the very top of my cartilage, near my head. Pliers in hand, Louie asked why I would have such “strange” piercings and declared I must have been a “rascal.” His sweet and funny demeanor redeemed Ditzypants’ ditziness. Once the metal was out, some miniature jumper cables were placed on my chest and I yelped with urgency, “WAIT, THE BOBBYPINS!”
Of course there were bobbypins. My house is littered with two things: cat hair and bobby pins.
Mom was sent to the lobby again and I was wheeled out by a new nurse, through some corridors, down an elevator, all the while telling passersby, “WEEEE!”
My wheelybed was tucked into a dim corner while the operating room was prepped. I cuddled up with a blanket and drifted off until the super cool surgeon (looooove her) woke me with a pat on the leg. More wheeling around before I struggled to hide my bare ass cheeks as I lifted from wheelybed to operating table in a large, white room with reeeally unforgiving lights above my face. An oxygen mask appeared over me. The last time I had worn one of those, I puked in it. The nurse swore it was only oxygen but the room started to spin after a minute and I gave her confused eyes and a muffled, “should the room be moving?!” Apparently, I was on my way under. I forced my eyes wide and then woke up in recovery.
No memory of feeling sleepy, of closing my eyes, of even relaxing. I was just… gone.
My first waking thoughts were of a seriously emotional gratitude toward my mom and the idea that I would take her to Catalina sometime.
I wanted to sleep. My eyes were heavy and I’d never felt so warm and comfortable. But if I know my mom and I’m pretty sure that I do, she would not fully exhale until she knew everything was done and I was still in one piece. It had been a long time of her holding her breath, about two and a half hours. I asked multiple times if they could bring her in and I imagine the nurse was calling me a pathetic little whiner behind my back.
Mom finally came into the recovery area and we had about an hour or so to chat and let my body relax. I was sore but certainly didn’t feel like there were four incisions in my stomach, going all the way through the skin, fat and muscle. When it came time to dress, I found myself at the most vulnerable I’ve probably ever been. At twenty-six years old, I found my mom helping me put my underwear on. If I wasn’t under the happy influence of painkillers, I may have burst into mortified tears. Instead we just giggled and I was discharged shortly after.
Easy peezy, lemon squeezy.
Recovery at home has been painful. The gas used to bloat my abdomen during surgery causes shoulder and neck pain. My back is aching something fierce because of how much I’m favoring my front half with an old lady hunch. Laughing and coughing are pretty much out of the question. I’m reminded so much of those days after my c-section when I begged everyone around me not to be funny. The anesthesia could possibly settle in my lungs and cause pneumonia (or something) so I was given a strange breathing apparatus to strengthen my lungs.
I am at my sexiest when in recovery, obv.
I said jokingly that I’ve been spoon fed since I got home, but it’s really the truth. My mom has gone so far above and beyond, down to reclining the armchair I’m in every time I need to move, refilling my juice cup constantly, serving me meals and snacks, re-bandaging me wounds. She has all but wiped my ass and I honestly think if I asked nicely, she might even do that. I could not be more grateful.
Tonight my dad served me a plate of steak, fried shrimp, a baked potato and vegetables. I think I could have surgery every day for this kind of star treatment.
If you’re reading this Mom, you have absolutely no idea how much it has meant to have you by side for every single second of this.
Last week, I momentarily swore off alcohol. Not for Lent, mind you. I only rode the Catholic train as a wee one. (When asked what I gave up last week, I told a friend, “um, cabbage?”) It took a lonely all nighter last Friday with half a bottle of Bacardi Select and some cheesy comedy DVDs, followed by Saturday night with half a bottle of Captain Morgan Tattoo at Josh’s relative’s house and some Barenjager shots at our favorite dive, where the shots are poured before we’ve found a seat. To top it off, a Sunday night drag show at a nearby gay bar consisting of at least ten Captain and Diets, plus a new favorite shot. Shake Frangelico and Chambord over ice, top it with whipped cream if you please. The name is perfect for its taste: Nuts & Berries.
Come Monday, I was hurtin’ something awful with no one to blame but myself.
And now it’s the following weekend and the most intoxication I can get is from a double dose of Norcos while my gut muscles heal back together. I’m sans gall bladder as of yesterday morning and thanking my saint of a mother for going above and beyond in her care for me. I’m completely spoiled and so grateful for it.
