doahleigh - Holy Waste of Teabags!

I’m back. I’m tired. But it was fun. I’d really like to write about a life lesson we learned the hard way: never get sick when you’re out of town (out of state!) in a strange city and don’t have a car, especially when it’s the night before you have a really early flight home. But telling that story requires pictures and I haven’t even begun to upload the nearly 400 photos I took. So for now, I’ll share some impressions instead:

My impression of airlines: Not helpful at all these days. Remember when they used to want to help you out, maybe make things a little easier while you travel? At one time wasn’t there such a thing as “distressed passenger” assistance? Yeah, not anymore. You are nothing but a boarding pass to them. Accept that now and you’ll be better off.

My impression of the Phoenix part of my trip: It was the best idea ever to have Brad come with me. I loved having him there.

My impression of the Scottsdale Hospital Emergency Room: Pretty decent. Except for when they put a six-and-a-half foot man in a bed that must have certainly been made for a child because no adult human could be comfortable in that thing, then gave him a blanket that couldn’t possibly cover his ankles and shoulders simultaneously, and finally forced him to use his sweatshirt as a pillow until his girlfriend scrounged around the makeshift linen closet without permission and wrangled him a real one. Other than that, it was as good as an emergency room experience can be.

My impression of southern California: So diverse! The people, the places, the landscapes.

My impression of Hollywood: So commercial. I guess that’s to be expected of a place like Hollywood, but I’m getting pretty sick of having iconic places and landmarks ruined for me by cheap commercialism and smelly tourist crowds. Yet somehow I’m always drawn to those kinds of places. I guess because I want to put them on my Been There Done That list. But visiting Hollywood didn’t feel like visiting Hollywood—it felt like visiting Anytown, USA, only there were stars on the sidewalks and all the shops sold the same plastic magnets and picture frames and cheesy t-shirts that had “HOLLYWOOD” painted all over them. I’m still glad I went though.

My impression of San Diego and the surrounding area: very cool. There was so much to see and do, and we crammed as much as we could into four days (look for pictures coming soon).

My impression of Erica and Noel as hosts: Possibly the best ever.

My impression of Ronia, their baby: Possibly the cutest (and most edible) ever.

I’m at Erica’s in San Diego, waiting for her to get ready to go on our “desert drive.” I’m not really sure what that entails, but I think there are various landscapes and apple pie involved. So far I’ve been to Hollywood and all over San Diego. I’m having so much fun, Erica and Noel are amazing hosts, and their baby, Ronia, is the cutest ever.

Hope everyone has a good Memorial Day. More later.

Last night I was tickling Brad in certain areas only he and I and his doctor are allowed to touch, and while he was writhing and struggling to escape, in between desperate laughter, he says,

“I hate you… with all my guts!”

I think that might be our new motto.

So far the trip is going great. Brad’s enjoying lots of sun, and I’m enjoying as much as I can in between conference crap. Some highlights:

• We got three hours of sleep Sunday night before leaving.
• But luckily we got into a room right away at the hotel even though it wasn’t even 9am when we arrived.
• So we got to take a delicious nap before hitting the pool.
• I found a twenty dollar bill in the Phoenix airport, and even though I asked around if anyone had “dropped anything,” there were no takers. I never find lost money, so this was exciting.
• The guy next to me at the training on Tuesday injected himself three times with insulin. I totally respect you’re right to be healthy in public dude, but needles make me nauseous. You’re lucky I didn’t lose my yogurt and granola all over your training manual.
• I think I saw Meryl Streep by the pool. Brad says no. Probably not.

We missed American Idol last night so I have no idea who sucked and who rocked. I’m hoping it’s Jordin and Blake, in that order. However, Jordin is from this part of the country (”The Valley” I guess it’s called), so all the news stations report that the winner is sooo aaahhh-bvious. Hello, Jordin. But I hope they’re wrong. Input? We’re going to try to catch at least the end of the finale tonight, but in case we miss it, I need full reports from all fans.

Day 3 of 10 is nearing a close. Hopefully I can check in again before the end of the trip.

Tomorrow morning kicks off my two-part, ten day trip. Phase 1: Five days in Phoenix for work with Brad in tow. Phase 2: Five days in San Diego to visit a good friend and her beautiful baby (sans Brad). I doubt I’ll have much time nor internet access to be blogging, but I’ll do my best to check in.

We leave bright and early tomorrow. Brad and I had just finished dropping some acid when we booked our tickets to Phoenix, so our brains were fried. We’ll be getting up before the sun to make our flight, and we’ll be arriving long before we can check into our room. It looks like we’ll be catching up on our sleep on the hotel lobby couches.

I don’t care, I’m just so excited to be getting out of here for awhile. Wish me safe travels!

A few weeks ago over at My Life According to Me, Abigail wrote about some freaky junk mail she received. I get plenty of junk mail, but never anything quite like that. Until today.

I found this in my mailbox this morning. I didn’t read the whole thing, only the parts that are underlined (and sometimes double underlined!) in blue. Naturally. So I’m not really sure what it’s all about. Something about people praying for me and descending upon my home. And there was a bunch of crap inside, including a letter.

Again, only read the blue parts, but it was obvious that they were giving me a handkerchief. A handkerchief? Why? Abigail got a rug to kneel on and stuff. I only get to blow my nose on a holy hankie? Is there really a handkerchief in here? Yes, but first I had to sift through some religiously watercolored papers.

And then, finally, the blessed handkerchief, so sacred and… made of paper?

What the hell kind of hankie is this? Looks more like a place mat to me. How am I supposed to blow my nose on such stiff scratchy paper? Do they really expect me to live with a sore red nose for God’s sake? No, I’m pretty sure my God would want me to use my lotion-infused Puffs Plus on a runny nose. Thanks God.

Actually what I think I’m supposed to do is write my name and the name of someone in need in the middle of the handkerchief, then place it at a specific place in my Bible (wait, was I supposed to get a Bible with this? I didn’t get a Bible), and set it next to my bed over night. Then I send the hankie back and they will pray over it. Then, I simply wait for miracles to happen. Easy.

Yeah, no thanks. I was really hoping for the kneeling rug. I just can’t get excited about a paper handkerchief. Sorry.

Yeah hi. Babies? Did you know that you little guys were all born to be breastfed? Yes, that is your calling in life apparently, your entire reason for being. To suck on a boob.

I hate the billboards I’ve been seeing lately that are part of the National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign. They simply read:

Babies were born to be breastfed.

Isn’t that annoying? I’m certainly not trying to get in the middle of the big scary breastfeeding debate. I don’t really care what you feed your baby—formula, breast milk, chocolate covered pickles, whatever. That’s not the point. What I hate is how idiotic that statement is.

When you say that someone was born to do something, you’re basically saying that is the reason they are alive, the reason they were created, the reason they exist. Like, “Florence was born to dance” means that Florence was put on this earth to dance and entertain and express ideas through dance. It means she was born with an innate talent for dancing, and if Florence ever decided to quit dancing in order to pursue, say, archery, at which she is pathetically awful, everyone would sigh with disappointment and beg her to stop with the crazy talk, put down the arrows and pick up the damn tutu!

To say that babies are born to be breastfed means that every baby ever born is born simply for the purpose of breastfeeding. Like women all over the world are sitting around with their overfull breasts squirting milk, hoping a baby will come along soon and relieve them. And once the babies are too old to breastfeed, well their life’s purpose is done and everything that comes after that is meaningless. They weren’t born to compose music or save lives or raise families or love someone. They weren’t even born to scrub toilets or break hearts. Nope, just to breastfeed.

When babies grow up and get old and eventually die, they’ll go to meet their maker and they’ll ask, Maker, what was the purspose of my life? And their maker will say, To breastfeed, my child, and that is all.

Yes I realize that we can be born for more than one purpose, but does anyone really believe that babies were actually born to be breastfed? Read that again. Born to be breastfed. I hope not. Let’s try rewording the sentence to make it a little less absurd.

• Babies should be breastfed.
• Babies are healthiest when breastfed.
• Babies like to be breastfed.
• Babies were born to do great things, therefore you should breastfeed them so they are as healthy as they can be.

Okay maybe those aren’t as cute and catchy, but at least they’re not stupid. Because what if I choose not to breastfeed my baby? Or what if I adopt a child and I can’t breastfeed? Does that mean that I’m denying my baby its reason for living? That I’m keeping it from its life’s purpose?

I don’t think so. Because my (future) babies will be born to be doctors or artists or presidents or rock stars. My babies will be born to kick some ass in this world, not just to suck on my boobs.

To tell the truth, I wasn’t very excited about AI this week. It almost felt like a chore to sit down at 8:00 with my little pencil and pad of paper. But I did it, and turns out, it was pretty enjoyable.

First songs…
Jordin: Not doing much for me.
Blake: Entertaining. Especially when he dropped the mic at the end.
Melinda: Voice of gold.

Second songs…
Jordin: Still not doing much for me.
Blake: I so frickin’ love Blake!
Melinda: You rock girl.

Third songs…
Jordin: Now she’s just starting to bug me.
Blake: Oh Blakey, you’re good.
Melinda: And you’re damn hot!

I’m worried that because Simon and Randy said they expect to see Melinda in the finale, people won’t vote for her while they try to “save” Blake and Jordin. All I really want from this show is to see Melinda and Blake in the final two, then I don’t care who wins. However, as usual, I didn’t vote. So I’ll shut up now.

When I started this project I wasn’t even sure what a pillow sham was; I had to look it up. Then I had to look up a pattern for making one, which turned out to be pretty worthless actually, so I won’t even link to it. In the end I kind of just guessed, but I think it turned out alright.

I made it to go with a quilt that I had made for my little sister (age 6) awhile ago. I seriously just sort of faked my way through this, and other than a few hardly noticeable mistakes, I’m happy with it. I embroidered her name, cut the fabric, and sewed it together in some sensible fashion. If you’re ever interested in knowing how to make a pillow sham, I’d be happy to share my amateur process.

Brad, last night on the phone, leaving a voicemail for his stepmom: Blah blah blah Happy Mother’s Day, I’ll talk to you soon. Love you, Brad.

Like he was signing a card or something. At the time, it was so funny, we laughed till my back muscles hurt.

——————

The song Freebird has been haunting me lately. It’s been around since before I was born, and it’s such an iconic song, yet somehow I never paid much attention until recently. Now it finds me all the time when I’m scanning through radio stations in the car, and every single time I feel compelled to stop and listen. What does that mean? Am I supposed to be getting a message from the lyrics?

But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn’t be the same.

Could that mean I need to end the lesbian relationship I’m having on the side?

But please don’t take it badly,
‘Cause Lord knows I’m to blame.

Meaning it’s my fault because I’m not even a lesbian anyway?

For I must be travelling on, now,
‘Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see.

Actually I think that must be it. I need to get out of here, out of this place. It’s squashing me and there are things I want to do, places I want to see. I plan to take Brad with me, but I think I’ll have to leave my girlfriend behind.

——————

I visited my family this weekend and it was a lot of fun. My sister E is in town from Montana with her new puppy, so we had a sister night on Friday. On Saturday I went to my nephew’s tumbling class, then watched my dad run in his first 25K in years. Yeah he’s 49, only trained up to 12 miles, and he blew out his knee last week. Yet he still ran just over 10 minute miles. I ran next to him for about 100 yards trying to capture a picture, and when I stopped my legs were burning and I was nearly out of breath. I’m 26. He’s 49 with a blown out knee. What the hell.

Then Sunday morning my siblings and I took Mom out to breakfast. My mother is beautiful and amazing and strong and always has the best attitude, and I only wish I could learn to be more like her.

This is Mom with three of her five kids. Bet you can’t even tell which one is her because she still looks so young and beautiful. Happy Mother’s Day Mom.

The only downside to the weekend was my lack of sleep. It’s not because we were up till the wee hours chatting and drinking beer—we quit that at a decent time. No, it’s because all the dogs in the house would not shut the fuck up for crying out loud! And the people would not stop coming in late. And the alarms would not stop going off at ungodly hours. Saturday night I ended up crying to Brad on the phone at 2:30am because I hadn’t gotten any sleep all weekend. I’ve mentioned before how fragile my sleep is. Don’t mess with my sleep!

But I suppose that’s what happens when eight humans and five animals share a house. It was a fun weekend, but I practically made love to my bed when I got home.

Inspired by Chase’s recent post at Taste the World, and perfectly in theme with these recent posts of my own, and mostly because I have nothing else interesting to blather on about, I’ve decided to share the story of my first kiss. And incidentally my second and third as well.

Technically my first kiss was when I was less than 10 years old (8? 6?), staying at a cottage with my family for a week in the summer. His name was Mark, he was fun to play with, and somehow at some point he kissed me and it was so unexciting that I hardly remember the details. So on the to the real first kiss I quickly move.

Wait before I even get to that, in order to demonstrate how much of a pansy I’ve always been regarding the kissing, I must quickly tell the story of my first missed kiss. My first official boyfriend ever was during my freshman year of high school. It was as pathetic as you can imagine, lasting barely a month, and the whole time I was paralyzed with fear of when he might try to kiss me. Not paralyzed actually, more like very active in strategically avoiding all potential kiss situations. The whole month went by and I managed to dodge any possible attempt he may have been contemplating to kiss me. I’m that good.

Boyfriend Number 2 came later that year. Sort of the same situation going on with him—I was so scared I’d mess up the whole kissing thing that rather than just get it over with, I evaded it like a master. But eventually my friends caught on, and so they began to plot. We used to hang out at one friend’s house quite a bit and had plans to do so again on a certain Friday night. Boys were invited too, which meant Boyfriend Number 2 would be there, and my friends decided this was the perfect time to orchestrate my first kiss. They let me in on their plan, and I’m pretty sure they also alerted Boyfriend Number 2 as to what was going to happen.

So there I was, hanging out with my friends and my boyfriend on a Friday night, practically puking all over myself with dread. Kissing? We’re supposed to kiss tonight? I, the master of evasion, considered all possible options for escape, but magically hours were converted to minutes and suddenly it was time for Boyfriend Number 2 to leave. Everyone was milling about the kitchen, Boyfriend Number 2 was trying to say goodbye to me, and I was using every ounce of energy I had to ignore him. Meanwhile my friends were being very subtle, as 14 year olds often are, in reminding me that tonight was the night, just do it already. No thank you, I thought to myself, as I turned to offer a final farewell smile to the Boyfriend. Bam! He kissed me, said goodbye and was out the door. I have very little recollection of what the kiss was like, but I do remember immediately laying down on the kitchen floor to process what just happened. At 14, post-kiss floor contemplation is a necessity.

Despite having the first kiss finally over, I persisted to avoid all future kiss opportunities with Boyfriend Number 2. I’m not kidding, more than once I pretended to be asleep when he left my friend’s house. Finally after going out one night, he walked me to my door to say good night. I distracted him with talking for as long as possible, but eventually he came at me. And this time the kiss was… airy. I remember distinctly. There was no *smack* at the end. Just an airy sound. That’s not right, I thought, but instead of making him try again, I turned to go inside and slammed right into the locked door. Three hundred shades of red in 0.3 seconds. We didn’t last much longer than that.

There’s one more reason that I didn’t get a decent kiss for another couple years. A year after the airy kiss, I started seeing another guy. We had a lot of fun together for a few months, but things were unclear and we were both unbelievably unwilling to make the first move. That is until one day his face attacked me in the driveway. I’m talking tongue down my throat, saliva on my chin, and his mouth engulfing my face.

Is it any wonder I waited a couple years before letting another guy’s mouth near mine? Fortunately I eventually got the hang of things, and so did several of the guys I encountered, thank God. I made up for lost time just fine. But man, the kissing. Such drama.

Maybe I was just having a bad night, but I think I’m getting bored with American Idol. Interesting since it’s down to the final four, three of which were my favorites from the beginning. This should be the time it gets really interesting and exciting, but instead I found myself preferring to read my book during the show. I was easily distracted and not at all engaged. However, I did manage to jot down a few notes.

First performances

Melinda: Still consistently good.
Blake: That was odd…in a good way. I think.
LaKisha: I didn’t hate it, unlike the judges.
Jordin: On the phone. But apparently the judges really liked it.

Second performances

Melinda: Such a great voice.
Blake: Love his style, love his dance.
LaKisha: Please beat Jordin to the next round.
Jordin: She’s really good and I like her, but she just hasn’t made me care.

It’s pretty obvious I want Jordin to be voted off. I know she has mega talent, but there’s just something missing for me. I don’t dislike her, I just really don’t care if she leaves. However, I’m guessing I won’t get my wish.