doahleigh - Holy Waste of Teabags!

And here we are. The last day of NaBloPoMo. Many participants have reflected on the experience, most proclaiming it painstakingly difficult to keep up with, but all seeming to have enjoyed the experience. I think it was an exercise appropriate for the times, and I’m glad I participated. I’m not going to reflect much on my own experience with the experiment other than to say that I honestly didn’t find it all that difficult, besides the emergency room visit, yet I’ll be glad to be freed from the confines of the daily posting requirements. Even though I do plan to keep up with regular posts as I did before this mania began.

What I really want to say on this final day of the craze that shook the Internet is that I’m glad I participated because it allowed me to expand my blogging horizons. I’m always looking for interesting blogs to read, people I have things in common with, or just those that have a spunky way of spinning a sentence. But I never had a very easy time of finding new blogs to read. Which is why I love the invention of the NaBloPoMo Randomizer, courtesy of pink elephants. If one blog is just not my taste, I simply click the little button and voila! There’s another. And another. And on and on until I suddenly find myself lost in the words of someone captivating. I was thrilled to hear that the Randomizer isn’t going away with the end of NaBlo; I hope it stays around until next year’s participant list is available.

Throughout the month I’ve read many new blogs and have even added a few to my “daily reads.” In honor of this exciting (excruciating?) month, this is me sharing a few of my new favorites with you:

My Life According to Me—a blogger my age, or close at least! (they’re suprisingly hard to find)
Empty Womb, Hopeful Heart: An Adoption Journey—she adopted a gorgeous little boy..and then found out she was pregnant
Daisies at pluckthepetal.com—I just find her so refreshing
Flailing my Arms—gotta love a daddy blogger, especially one who blashpemes freely

And that’s really all I have to say on Day 30. Except that I really want to win one of the 35(!) generous prizes, which I totally qualify for. That would make it even more fun than it has already been.

Tata to all until…well until tomorrow most likely.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been writing everyday for 29 straight days, but all I can think to write lately are the whiney complaints I have about my health issues. It’s all I can talk about too. I know Brad has got to be tired of me. Even now that he’s starting to get a cold and has been feeling really blah lately, and even though he took such good care of me when I was miserable, instead of being caring and nurturing, all I can do is bitch about my trivial problems and occassionally ask “Oh yeah how are you feeling?”

Well Brad and the Internet: forgive me this one more time (this month at least). I’m having a problem, I don’t like it, and I need your help.

See that cotton ball covered with tape? That’s where the IV was. It hurt when I got it, but it was worth it to help me feel better. But now it’s been over five days since they removed it, and my arm still feels like someone is trying to cut it off. There hasn’t been any bruising like some people warned, but my arm aches deep inside. Not only at the injection site, but in my forearm and bicep too. For a few days it was just tender, meaning I couldn’t touch it or bend or straighten my arm completely.

Now it straight up aches. It’s worse when I bend or straighten, but even when immobile, it’s still uncomfortable. I’m not saying it’s extremely painful, but that’s such a sensitive part of my body so I’m constantly aware of it. I can’t stop thinking about my arm! …or talking about it apparently.

Is this normal? Should my whole arm be affected like this? I expected a little pain for a couple days, yes. But it’s been five, and a little pain has turned into the sensation of having my arm impaled with metal rods. Sort of. Is it time to amputate or am I overreacting?

Instead of spending time writing anything worthwhile today, I instead wasted about 8 minutes drawing at artpad.com. I must give credit though because I was inspired by Abigail’s lovely abstract.

I drew a representation of my desk. Or part of it. Yes I’m at work, but I’m taking a cigarette break. Or a coffee break. Since I don’t smoke or drink coffee, I get to blog instead. A blog break. It’s totally legit.

You can watch me draw it here. Word to the wise: increase the speed, otherwise you’ll be sitting there for much longer than is worth your time. Also, the damn type feature was being funky, which is why it says “wow I can’t type.” Really, I’m quite speedy! Just to save a little face around here.

Dear Body,
Hi it’s me. I’ve been noticing a pattern, and I wanted to bring it to your attention in case you weren’t aware. Ever since we got health insurance a few months ago, you’ve really been acting up. I brought you in for a regular check up and got the all clear from the doctor. However, since then you’ve found a variety of ways to use (or dare I say abuse?) our insurance privileges.

First there was the migraine. I’m sure I don’t need to point out that you’ve never had a migraine before, including the whole time we were without insurance. Why now?

Then there was the severe vomiting. If I wouldn’t have had insurance to cover that emergency room visit, what would you have done? Just let me dehydrate and die? You haven’t pulled anything like that since we were young and on my parents’ insurance. I don’t understand.

And now, last night, you told the gall stones to start acting up again. All evening I tried to figure out what was wrong, it was such an odd pain, and suddenly I realized the discomfort was all too familiar. Last time you did this, we were at the very end of parental health coverage, and you miraculously made the problem go away on it’s own. Just because we have insurance again, doesn’t mean all these problems need to come back. I laid awake all but two hours last night and had to get up early, so this is no longer amusing.

I know it’s important that we get healthy, Body, and I know we’re lucky to have insurance, but is it really necessary to cause all these problems now when for so many years you were perfectly healthy? Please consider giving me a break.
Sincerely, Self

————

Dear Self,
Sorry about the gall stone thing. It might just be acid reflux, but you’ll have to wait and see. I know it sucks to get so little sleep when you can’t even lay down without feeling like your stomach is being eaten by a million little gnats. But I can’t make any promises about relief tonight.

I see where you’re coming from. But the way I see it, we need to get all this crap out of the way while we’ve got the insurance. You never know when we’ll be without it again. Wouldn’t you rather deal with this stuff while it’s cheap?
All the best, Body

————

Body,
Okay good point. But can you please stop anyway? I just want to feel better and get some sleep!
Begging for relief, Self

The differences between Brad and I:

He…searched high and low for the perfect Christmas 2006 ornament to symbolize our relationship, a tradition we started last year.
I…was ready to settle for any ornament that wasn’t completely lame.

He…put the whole tree together (we got an artificial one this year) by himself.
I…sat on the couch and watched (I was still sick, so I have an excuse).

He…had all his ornaments carefully wrapped and packaged in their original boxes, as is his way.
I…had all my ornaments shoved haphazardly together in a bag.

He…took his time hanging each ornament, stepping back to view the tree and identify the perfect spot. After hanging each ornament, he stepped back again to ensure that he had selected correctly.
I…threw ornaments on the tree with very little attention to how they looked or what gaps needed to be filled.

He…put together a pretty sweet christmas tree with very little actual help from me.
I…love him for it.

Not that anyone really wants to hear the gory details of my illness, but here they are for posterity’s sake.

I started to feel sick to my stomach when we left the relatives’ house around 8 on Thanksgiving night. We tried to run some errands, but eventually Brad insisted we go home because he could see how awful I felt. At home I laid in bed for a short time before deciding if I just make myself throw up I’ll feel better. So I did. And I did. Feel better. For a short time.

That’s when I posted, and it wasn’t long after that that I found myself staring into the toilet again. And again and again. I tried to take Pepto Bismol, but that didn’t stay down long. And my body wasn’t even accepting water. I was on the bathroom floor crying, sweating, then shivering, moaning and sobbing that I can’t do this anymore please make it stop. I tried to call my mommy for a little comfort, but she had turned her phone off.

Brad kept me company as best he could, and finally insisted we call the emergency nurse line. I talked to a nurse who, after asking me about 78 questions, insisted that I go to the emergency room before I dehydrated. Before I even got off the phone, Brad had everything ready to go, and after one more visit to the bathroom (I think I was at about 6 by then), we sped off to the hospital.

Where we sat for HOURS! It’s all kind of a blur for me, I was lightheaded and dizzy the whole time, in and out of the bathroom, (this is where it gets really unpleasant) all the fluids in my body coming out both ends. I insisted we sit on the most uncomfortable bench the whole time because it was closest to the bathroom.

After two long hours, I was called in. Before I knew what was going on, they were drawing blood and giving me an IV. I hate needles more than I can explain, so that was not my favorite part. I thought my misery from all the puking would numb the needle stick, but I felt every bit of it! Then they put me in a bed in the hallway and covered me with warm blankets. The fluids that were pumping into my body were chilled, so my blood was literally running cold, which made my whole body shiver. I had four blankets and two coats on top of me and I still couldn’t control the shaking.

But laying down and getting the fluids made me feel much better. Eventually they moved me to a real room where we waited some more. I did talk to a doctor for a minute, who said she wasn’t going to let me go until I could give a urine sample. So they injected some phenergan into my IV (ouch!) for the nausea and gave me another bag of fluids. That’s when I passed out, and Brad curled himself around two plastic chairs, trying his best to get a little rest.

Finally at 630am my fluids ran out and I was able to give a urine sample, which was fine, except the act of walking to the bathroom did not agree with my stomach and I threw up again. I didn’t want to go home, I wanted to stay in the hospital bed and not move until I felt completely better. But there were others with worse problems than mine and I needed to move along. I struggled to even walk to the car, but somehow Brad managed to carry all my crap plus keep me standing upright.

He got me home and into bed by 7am. We slept until 3:30pm the next day, and then I did my best not to move all evening. Brad went out and got my popsicles and magazines, and that’s what I did all day. I haven’t thrown up again since the last time at about 6:30am, but my stomach is just waiting for me to make a wrong move and then it will all come back to haunt me.

I do know, however, that I was very lucky to have Brad with me. I really don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t been there. Probably passed out in a pool of puke.

It was not a fun night, something I hope to never go through again. I hate vomiting, I hate hospitals, I hate IVs. I know it could have been so much worse, but at the same time I wish it never would have happened. I’m not sure I can ever look at Thanksgiving the same again.

Let me just say that things got MUCH worse after I posted last night. I’m still not feeling well enough to sit here and write out the details—I’ll try tomorrow—but for now just know that it involved a hospital and a really late night. Oh and an amazing boyfriend who got me through the whole thing.

I’ll fill in some of the unpleasant details soon. For now, I need to go back to the comfort of the couch and yet another popsicle.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well it was until about 20 minutes ago when my turkey dinner came back up. I don’t know what exactly made me sick because I don’t get stomach aches that often, and I definitely don’t throw up unless absolutely necessary, but unfortunately that’s probably what I’ll always remember about Thanksgiving 2006.

And now I have to go lay down again. I’m still not feeling great. Bleh.

We’ve tried various times to change our eating habits and eat better. We know we should, but every time we try, we quickly slip back into our poor habits. Recently we tried planning meals so we’d actually stay in and prepare our food rather than eating out every night of the week. But after the ingredients for stir fry and tacos sat in our cupboards and freezer for months, we finally came to terms with reality. Last night when we went grocery shopping, we bought only food we knew we would eat. Thus, this is our pantry:

You’ll find seven boxes of cereal, Cream of Wheat, two boxes of Pop-tarts, instant oatmeal, and two boxes of Oatmeal to Go. What can I say? We like our breakfast foods, we even eat them for all three meals plus snacks. But to be fair, we also bought yogurt, eggs, bread, pretzels and a frozen pizza.

Good thing tomorrow is Thanksgiving so we can eat all the delicious food that other people are so good at preparing. Otherwise, I think we’d be having oatmeal and toast instead of full turkey dinner.

Edit: I’m sorry, make that eight boxes of cereal. I forgot the giant box of Corn Pops tucked in the back that was too big to fit in the line.

The recent issue of Cosmo tells me that I’m not supposed to wear anything too comfortable to bed or Brad might stop loving me.

“Once you’re a couple, it’s easy to fall into bed wearing sweats and an old tee shirt…but it makes the bedroom a less magical place.”

It goes on to say that I should pull out those teddies from our dating days (wait, what if I didn’t have those?) and also buy some new sexy pieces.

“Every night offers another opportunity to look, if not fantastic, at least a little special.”

Okay, so I guess I’m supposed to do this every night in order to assure that Brad stays in love with me. And apparently a teddy alone isn’t enough to be fantastic, that only makes me “a little special.”

Finally, Cosmo says I’m supposed to hide my lingerie from Brad to keep it mysterious and alluring. I shouldn’t dare let any sexy teddies come in contact with my grungy sweatpants.

Now, I’m pretty confident Brad loves me despite what I wear to bed, but Cosmo is a young woman’s bible right? I better heed its advice.

Therefore I plan to purchase 30 new pieces of lingerie, one for each night of the week. The sluttier the better because slutty is sexy right? And I’ll buy a cute little pink box with a crystal-studded padlock to ensure that my lingerie remains extra mysterious and sexy.

Also, I know it’s bad for my complexion, but I plan to redo my makeup right before bed each night. I wouldn’t want Brad to be reminded that I’m not naturally fantastic and special. And lastly, I’ll have to wear stilettos to bed too. It’s not very practical, and Cosmo doesn’t explicitly suggest it, but I figure if I’m going to move from “a little special” to “fantastic,” I better give it a little something extra. I may accidentally stab Brad with my heels in the middle of the night, but he’ll just have to deal with a bleeding puncture wound if he wants me to remain sexy and lovable forever.

My Aunt: So your uncle, who doesn’t read much, actually bought a book awhile ago.
Me: Oh yeah? What was it?
Aunt: “Leavenworth Train”
Me: Hmm, that sounds familiar. What is it about?
Aunt: blah blah something about the wild west and a train robber and a prison blah blah
Me: [thinking: that definitely doesn't sound familiar]
Aunt: So anyway, he gave it to [your cousin] and we don’t know where it went from there.
Me: Weird, it sounds so familiar, even though I know I’ve never read it…

I couldn’t shake how familiar that title sounded, so I called Brad and asked him to go through my bookshelf at home. Sure enough, there it was, buried in my stack of “To Read” books.

Turns out my cousin gave it to my grandpa, an avid reader, who didn’t realize it eventually needed to get back to my uncle. When he was finished, my grandpa gave it to my dad, who used to be an avid reader but is now too busy raising two young kids and trying to keep up with the lives of his five grown children. So the book sat at his house for a couple months before he eventually gave it to me.

My dad has been known to pass along to me any books that he doesn’t have time to read. I, however, also have a stack of “To Read” books I plan to get through, and that’s where Leavenworth Train got lost. I, of course, didn’t distinguish this book from any of the other books that get passed to me, and I had no idea it had become “the mystery book” to others in my family!

When Brad found the book, I immediately told my aunt, and thus the mystery was solved. And if you look to the right under Currently Reading, you’ll see that I’m giving it a try. I won’t see my uncle until Christmas, so I have plenty of time to give it my stamp of approval. Or not. Maybe it’ll totally suck, but I figure a book with that kind of story deserves to be read.

Earlier this year, when rumors of the Nintendo Wii first hit, I told Brad I’d be happy to buy him one for Christmas. Months went by and the Wii’s reputation grew. This thing was going to be pretty damn cool!

He’s been looking forward to November 19 (the release date) for a long time, and I’ve been excited for him. So we went out last night to try to snatch one up at midnight, thinking that we had a pretty good chance. We tried Meijer first since they’re open 24 hours, and right away we saw a short line near the toy section. It wasn’t very threatening though, so we walked around the store for half an hour before joining the line. Right away some woman looks down at where we were sitting on the floor and condescendingly says, “Do you know they only have eight? And there are eight people in line? And we all already have bracelets?”

Bracelets? This was more serious than we imagined. It was then that we noticed everyone else was sitting in chairs; chairs that were marked Wii #1 through Wii #8. Yeah, this was going to be harder than we thought. We decided to wait it out, ya never know when someone’s card might get declined, and as number nine in line, we could totally cash in on their misfortune. However, a few minutes after we were herded like cattle over to the toy department’s cash register, I looked at Brad and said, “I don’t know if I want to be part of this group.” One guy had waited since 7:00 the day before; others were there nearly as long. They were all throwing around gaming vocabulary and trying to outdo each other with how cool they were for being one of the elite eight.

Brad agreed, so we left. We drove by a few other stores, many of which didn’t open until the next morning, but which nonetheless had lines of bundled-up people waiting out front. We rolled down the window at Circuit City to get the scoop: they had 13 Wiis and opened at 10am. There were only a few people in line at the time, but I guess they were all willing to spend the night in a dark, cold parking lot in the name of the Wii.

We, on the other hand, laughed to ourselves and drove away. We crawled into a warm bed and fell asleep. Brad woke up early in the morning to eat cereal, which is a strange habit of his, and decided since he was up anyway, he may as well try for a Wii. He headed down to Circuit City at around 7 and managed to be 11th in line! I came an hour later and actually stood in the cold for 30 minutes with the same people I had mocked only hours earlier. But at 8:00 we were handed a voucher good for one Wii. All we had to do was come back before noon to pick it up and pay. Oh yeah, and fight the crowds for an extra controller and maybe a game too.

I never thought I’d be one to wait in line for anything, especially after mocking so many others for doing it.. And I definitely never thought I’d lose sleep in order to do so. And I especially never thought I’d be willing to endure such obnoxious human behavior, let alone be a part of it, just to spend money on the material manifestation of some overblown craze. But I did. Not to the extent that many others were willing to go—we did the minimum required to get our hands on a game system—but I still did something I don’t think I’d ever be willing to do for myself. I did it for my boy.

Merry Christmas baby!

You always hear that: “There are two kinds of people in this world…” And with all the different “two kinds,” there ends up being thousands of kinds of people. And when all those overlap and mix together, you have billions of individuals. I guess that’s why we’re all unique. But I propose another two kinds of people, something that my relationship with Brad has recently made me realize.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who need to be loved, and those who need to love.

Sometimes when Brad and I argue, we both get caught up in trying to make the other person understand our point. We worry more about that than we do about trying to understand what the other person is saying. I always want B to just stop and say “Okay hon, this is silly, let’s just love each other and stop fighting.” I want him to think loving me is more important than getting his point across. And I think he wants me to do the same thing. Therefore, neither of us says anything, and we both keep driving our point into the ground.

I think that’s because we’re both need to be loved people. We love each other, and we love loving each other. But in the end, what we really need is to feel loved. That’s what makes it all worth it.

I know some need to love people though, and I can see striking differences between them and me. My mom is a need to love person. She’s been in many relationships, and in each of them she is always the lover, the nurturer. It gives her fulfillment to shower someone with love. I think in all of her past relationships, she has always loved more than she has been loved. It made her feel good to fully love another person, and it made that other person feel good to be fully loved.

That’s not to say that one type of person is better than the other. They’re just different. And that’s not to say that it’s black and white, one or the other; there are different levels of each. That’s why some couples get along so well: they’ve struck a comfortable balance between loving and being loved by each other.

However, I think there are more need to be loved people in the world than there are need to love people. Which means there are probably a lot of need to be loved people in relationships with each other.

Which, of course, is why Brad and I get so caught up in making ourselves heard when we argue. We’re trying so hard to be loved that we temporarily forget that maybe the fact that we love each other so much is just as important.