Just Expressive

There are many ways that I am not a typical mother, some of which I’m sure I’ve illustrated here (working the pole in New Orleans? many tattoos? hanging out with rock stars? overly frank conversations with my son? you get the idea) but there is at least one other that I’ve never admitted before now. Children drive me crazy.

That’s right.

Yesterday afternoon I walked out of the house to drive the boy to youth group* and there were children hanging from one of my trees. What the hell is that? The kid didn’t even know who two of them were and apparently one of them was the little sister of the boy that lives across the street. Still, it’s not your tree or your yard, what makes you think you can just walk your little asses over here and hop on up? To make matters worse they decided that it might be a good idea to leave right at that instant and walk directly in the path of my now moving car. *SIGH*

Every day there are at least half a dozen children in the middle of two or more streets I have to drive down to get to and from my house. There is the little rip stick gang that rides directly in the middle of the street and does not yield to cars. There is a boy that is maybe 4 years old on a scooter that rides diagonally ACROSS the street in front of you instead of stopping and letting you pass. There are 2 boys that jump their ramps when they see you coming so there is the possibility of their imminent death at any moment.

I secretly fantasize about giving them that death. I do. I fantasize about going all Death Race 2000 on their little asses and sending then careening over the hood of my car. I imagine the points values that would be assigned based on their ages and whatever mode of transport they happen to currently be on. Then when their stupid neglectful parents run out into the street, I’d get a double points value. It’d be awesome.

*even though we are not religious in the slightest, my child goes to youth group every wednesday night. he goes there because the church over here has a playground for teenagers: huge flat panel tv’s, x-box, playstation, ping pong, basketball, foodcourt. I think it’s pretty shady. church should be about worship-not about coercing children’s attendance through material means but maybe that’s me being on a soapbox and hypocritical since I have no intention of going myself. anyway, he also goes to skate. I think it’s disingenuous of him to go for these reasons and will be putting a stop to it soon, if there is no spiritual reason for him to go, I think it’s wrong to use the church (even if I disagree with their methods) like that.

The Global Bazaar is back at Target and of course it has gorgeous stuff. I love this lamp but don’t have anywhere to put it

on Polaroid’s and Pinhole’s Etsy Site “I create photographic prints using pinhole camera, polaroid, photogram and traditional darkroom techniques.”
There are a bunch of awesome other options in there and the pinhole camera brings back memories of high school photography class and shoebox cameras. Not that the print does because obviously our shitty prints didn’t look anything like that bit of gorgeous there, but the technique I mean

by Katinka Pinka is super cute with its hidden bunnies.

Nine West Peep Toe Mary Janes, currently on sale for $49.99 in limited sizes

I am a sucker for Apothecary Jars. These from Z Gallerie start at $39.95

I need a chair in the living room to replace the husband’s Poang. I think this might be it.

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I was positive that today’s blog was going to be about sagging pants. I had a witty title laid out, I had my references to Dr Obvious’ show yesterday and I even had personal anecdotes ready to go. As you can tell, it was going to be quite the blog.

Today, I am not writing that blog.  Today, I am writing a blog about my internal plumbing or lack thereof. Why the sudden change you may find yourself wondering? Why would I suddenly switch gears? I went to pick up my meds this afternoon at Kroger and it was an amusing (amusing in a sick and twisted way) experience.

Rapid rewind to the year of 2001, a year I affectionately refer to as the year of suck, when I started a whole host of medical problems beginning with the lumpy breast. Some women have nicknames for their breasts and usually they are cute and sexy. I had only named the one, Lumpy, until Wills named the other The Runt sometime much later-but I digress. So after planning to cut off my waist length hair to make my chemo wig and deciding that I would of course get reconstructive surgery, I am a thinker, it turned out that the lumps were fibroids and the first surgery of the year was apparently over nothing. Remember that word “first” there, it’s going to come in handy later. Oh you may also want to settle in, it was a LONG damn year.

On my birthday (around a month after the surgery) a camping chair folded up with me inside and gave me my first official broken bone. It was the worst ever broken bone, the ass bone. There is no cast for that bone my friends, you get a lovely little donut to cart around (which is the same thing you get for a bad case of hemorrhoids) and if you are lucky, some good pain meds.  Fortunately for me, I had some leftover from my surgery but unfortunately for me a month or so later I still wasn’t walking so well which lead to me falling down the stairs at the Astrodome. Now, if you’ve never been to the Astrodome, you might not be aware that the stairs are concrete and double tier. I went down those bad boys on my shins.

So far we’ve covered December, January and February and the tally is Universe 2, Jess 1 (I’m taking Dec since I didn’t have cancer and its the only 1 I get).  Onward to March! A friend of mine went to California to have some surgery and I took on his spastic German Shepherd Anya. While dogsitting she got herself stuck in her kennel door and while trying to free her she busted the door outward and gave me a black eye and split the corner open.

In April, I started the period that would not end. Seriously. After the second week I went to see my dr and he put me on birth control pills. Nothing. Beginning of May the cramping started and the bleeding still hadn’t stopped. They had me in for an exam and that’s when he thought he felt a mass. Fab! Round two of cancer scares! A nurse turned a needle sideways in my arm while trying to draw blood! SUPER FUN! So they have me in for an ultra sound. Oh, if you’ve never had a lump in your boob, they do the ultra sound through a breast implant- I thought that was pretty groovy. Anyway, this ultra sound didn’t find anything. On Mother’s Day I was doubled over with cramps and actually got pushed back to my bedroom in my rolling office chair. Fucking hell.

Universe 5, Jess 1

June they set up the laparoscopy.  It was then determined that I had Stage III endometriosis. I have pictures of all my internal girly parts. I can show you my uterus, ovaries and even my appendix along with some really gross shit that looks like Freddy Krueger’s face.  During the surgery they lasered out a whole bunch of scar tissue and cleaned me up really well. During my post op visit my doctor sat me down for a come to jesus meeting where we discussed my options. One of which (and the most highly recommended) was getting pregnant again. I’d go through hormone therapy and then they’d attempt to get me preggers again. I’d always wanted another child and was pretty desperate at that point to make it happen. The ex was not having any part of it so it got pretty dark in my world for a while (on top of that my “adoptive” dad passed away right after my surgery) and then the bleeding didn’t stop.

Universe  Are you still counting?, Jess black hole of doom

The weight loss also didn’t stop. The pain didn’t stop either. I was taking vicodin to get through work, heating up a microwave heating pad to make the drive home, taking vicodin to make it through dinner and then passing out. Rinse and repeat day after day. By August I was wearing multiple layers of clothes (did I mention I live in HOUSTON) and weighed barely over 100 lbs I’m 5’9 or so when I made the call to just take it out. I knew that the ex wasn’t going to give in on having a baby and I couldn’t take it anymore. It turned out that I had been bleeding internally since June and had I not had that hysterectomy when I did, I would’ve just keeled over somewhere. The doctor* found blood pooling on all of my internal organs in that area.

Of course we all know what happened September 11th 2001. I was still recovering from my hysterectomy at that time. I’m not really going to get into my feelings on that day here as it’s too much for a small paragraph as part of a larger post.

Final tally

Universe-We’ll let you live, Jess-…

So anyway, all that crap lead up to why getting my meds today was amusing. I have to take hormones to replace all my plumbing being gone. I have an estrogen ring that lasts 90 days and Wills insurance in their infinite wisdom thinks that I should pay 3 co-pays since it lasts that long. When I ordered it the girl said that something was wrong with the cost on the second med. So I stated the price and she looked at me in surprise, when I said very calmly that it was right. 30 minutes later I went to pick it up and the girl asked if I knew the price before giving me the slip to sign. I just nodded. A few weeks ago I was there and a woman was freaking out over paying $18 dollars for a medication. I wonder what she would do if she had to pick up my $150 Femring and my $50 Topamax?

When I first heard the price on the new insurance, I had a cow. I mean it’s pretty fucking sick, but now what can I do about it? There is no mail option that will make it cheaper for us. I have to have it and honestly I haven’t had a period since ’01 so I don’t pay for tampons or pads, that’s a savings right there.  At least the ring is only 4 times a year. The Topamax is every month which is kinda shitty but I would do pretty much anything to reduce the migraines so they kinda have me over a barrel. Now I get to laugh at every pharmacy tech that is panicked about having to tell me the price every time I go to get them. Simple pleasures, right?

*Because my doctor is a stubborn and AWESOME man, he sent off the ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes to be biopsied. All of them were completely engulfed with endometrial tissue. There was NO way that I would’ve been able to have another child if I had even tried. The one I have now is a miracle given that the age of the damage on my ovaries was older than he was at the time.

On Sunday we went down to see Wills fam; Tuesday is Ma-maw’s 77th b-day so we went down early to celebrate with her and also to do my birthday with them. I didn’t bring the SLR down with me but we never leave the house without at least one camera.

Kayla

It’s to the point that my niece, nephew and son don’t know what to do without a camera pointed in their face. It’s kinda nice actually being back since my photography seems to go in phases. Don’t get me wrong, I always love looking at pictures. Sometimes, it’s just not as imperative that I be the one taking them. I think the switch from film to digital was hard for me. I loved the suspense of getting the film back. I loved never knowing what exactly I had. I miss the smell of a dark room (even though I haven’t been in one in a very long time) and that first burn in of an image appearing on the paper.

I always have my camera out. I have GBs and GBs of shots on the computer. I think it’s about time that I dump some off before it makes the poor laptop start chugging instead of purring. I got some cash as a b-day gift from the in-laws so I picked up another lens. The fixed 50 mm is a pretty cheap lens (under $100) and I have heard some good things about it so I’m excited to try it out. I really need to learn more things about my camera but I am so bad about reading my manual and actually understanding it. I do better with someone talking me through things. Hobie and I might go on a shoot date here before too long.

I have a project going in the hallway to put up black and white pics of friends, family and places. I will have a couple of brightly colored pics here and there to make things pop but everything else will be black and white. I LOVE black and white photography and when I shot film it was pretty exclusive to that. I loved high speed especially for the graininess. For me black and white makes you focus more on the subjects of the picture and their expressions, you don’t allow the color to distract you. Maybe I’m easily distracted, but when a photo is in color, I focus on the colors instead of whatever/whoever is in the photo.

Anyway, while I was there snapping away Pa-paw mentioned that he loved to take pictures too and while he was in the army that’s one of the things he did. He apparently has a whole box of them from 1952 and next time we are over there I get to see them. I am insanely excited about that. I LOVE old pictures and secretly hope that I might be able to talk him out of one or two of them. He said there is even one of them where they were shooting one of the big guns off with the huge smoke rings. I can’t imagine.

When I was 15 we took a trip to Fl and I met my great grandmother, she had the most amazing pictures. They were so old and sepia toned and I just fell in love with the history of them. I had no idea who half the people in them where but when she died that is all I asked for, I didn’t care about her money or any of her material things. My mother, grandmother and my aunts were not of the same mind and fell to fighting over who got what. Such an uproar went on over all of her stuff that her brother flew to town and proceeded to sell her things in a garage sale. I never found out where the pictures went but the whole thing disgusted me.

I think I am partial to pictures and so interested in other peoples pictures because I don’t have very many of my own. All of my childhood pictures are in my head pretty much. I have no contact with my biological family (that’s a story for another day) so whatever I have is what moved with me to Texas and what I was able to get a while back. Like Pa-paw said, “Ain’t nothing can bring you back to a moment in your life like a picture or a song”. Which is probably why those are my two fave arts.

Brody

In this house we watch a lot of Food Network. I think anyone that watches a lot of this channel has their favorite “food network star” and I suppose we are no different, but this blog is not about that. Part of this blog is about one that I have a problem with, namely Paula Deen. Now, I think she is the sweetest thing ever and just so damn bubbly; it must be awesome to be her friend. I’ve long had a problem with her cooking. It’s so artery clogging and greasy that my stomach turns just looking at some of it. After watching some of her heavier shows, I want to dive into a pile of veggies as a way of cleansing myself, but even that isn’t really the problem. If you’ve never watched Paula’s Party you may not be aware of the fact that Paula Deen is a dirty old woman. Seriously! That show is so sexual innuendo laden that it grosses me out. That is like thinking about your parents having sex and EWWW.

Willy thinks it’s HILARIOUS how deeply scarring this is to me and uses every opportunity he can to point them all out to me. The other day her show was on and she was making ice cream balls. OMG. She went on to talk about how she likes big balls. So of course Wills is next to me on the couch in his best Paula Deen voice “I like big balls y’all”  In another show she talked about how she likes to end her meals with something savory in her mouth instead of something sweet, there he went again. GAH! He loves to do this to me. He says it’s like a game to find as many as he can in each show. He lays on the really thick southern accent when he repeats them back to me and sometimes makes them dirtier if he can. ICKY.  On one of her shows she was licking chocolate from the chocolate fountain directly. *shudder*

Paula Deen is the stuff of my nightmares y’all.

The other way I was tortured this weekend was buying a pair of jeans. We were at the mall to exchange a hoodie (which was small torture on its own) and I asked to stop in to Banana Republic to smell their perfume (I want Jade badly) and while there I headed back to the sale aisle. There I found a pair of dark wash denim marked down from $108 to $29.99. DUDE! I must have them. For the next 30 minutes I hemmed and hawed over what size I should get because I couldn’t just go try them on. See…I go commando. While I own cute panties, I rarely wear them and it makes clothes shopping something I have to plan for. I used to carry a t-back in my purse because they are small and easy enough to hide but as I haven’t really been shopping anymore, I stopped doing that. Anyway, I decided on a size and brought them home. I can always try them on here and then take them back if they don’t fit.

So those beautiful dark wash denim on an insane discount that I fit into a smaller size than I thought I would jeans? Mom jeans.Why the hell would Banana Republic be selling MOM JEANS? I put them on for Wills and he LAUGHED. I showed him the back and asked is this sexy and he was like um, not so much.

*cry*

Torture

One word for you

NEON

It’s everywhere! It’s a plague that is infesting half the stores and is all over the “it” lists as what’s in right now. Yeah. I’ll be passing on this trend thank you; I did it the first go round and still carry the scars.

Neon. GAH!

me: <yelling> don’t get into your jammies yet! <turning around only to realize wills is in the room and there is no reason to yell>

w: why not?

me: because I don’t have anything to make for dinner tonight.

w: but it’s COLD outside <this is said with a whine complete with arms out to the sides wide and his head cocked over like a little boy>

me: that <motioning with hands> is so going in my blog

w: you can’t go running and telling the internet about everything I do!

<willy is now standing with his hands on his hips for emphasis>

me: the hands on the hips is going too!

<willy now flops on the couch and folds his arms>

<typing>

me: but it’s CUTE!

w: you are going to have to wait until I warm up before I go back out there again

<still typing>

fin

************************************************************

–last night in our bedroom–

me: so you know it’s only 5 months or so away from our 3 year wedding anniversary

w: yup

me: which means that our 5 year is only two years away

w: UGH

me: UGH???

w: I mean ugh, we only have 2 years to start saving for our trip to Europe..

me: I say our 5 year is 2 years away and the first thing you say is UGH? Can you feel me glaring at you in the dark?

w: <slowly turns j’s head away so it’s no longer facing his> yup, I can feel it.

I am going to create a FAQ for this site like Jennie . Please leave comments with things you’d like to know about me or any questions you’d like answered.

I will admit that I hope this will also bring some of you lurkers out. I see you in my stats, come on now-don’t be afraid. I only bite hard if you are into that sort of thing!

I am also going to create a recipe section to make it easier to find recipes than digging through the cooking category. Last night I made Pierogi again but this time I sauteed it with apples and sausage and night before last it was spinach stuffed chicken breast that you can see over there in my flickr.

In other news, I am trying to figure out if I’d still be cute without my nose. I can wear my contacts so I don’t really need to wear my glasses and frankly it’s not doing me a damn bit of good. I spent all day at work with people asking me about my cold or talking to me in baby talk about “being sick” I am not a KID DAMMIT.

Wills watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s with me last night. Audrey Hepburn? It should be criminal to be that stunning. Seriously. It was cute except for the whole “married when she was going on 14” part of the story. What the eff was up with that?

In 2005 we decided to go away together after dating for about a month. He had already been planning to go to NOLA with a friend that bailed on him and being my birthday made it easy for the two of us to decide to just go together. We found this awesome boutique hotel (which is where we stay every time we go now) and off we went. I was afraid it would be awkward given we hardly knew each other; I say hardly because at that point most of our relationship was via the phone and only every other weekend when my son was gone.

from our hotel bathroom in the Hotel Royal

But I worked the cleavage (ha!) and we had a great time. We checked out a lot of great blues music, drank and wandered around a lot.

The second day, I went and got my tramp stamp from Ink-a-bink. Wills was great and held my hand the whole way through. I am not a wuss by any means but I got my tat VERY low and it hurt pretty bad on my tailbone. The interesting story is that the year prior (yes that trip) I had met a guy with tattoos in the Clover Grill and he is the guy that later did my tattoo. He has killer tattoos of quill pens on each of his forearms that spurred me to talk to him in the first place.

Tramp Stamp

Later that night we were wandering on Decatur when we ran into one of those friends of Willy’s (yes the one that had cancelled on him-awkward) and ended up hanging out with them for a while. The first bar we went into was Deep South Lounge and there the following pic was taken

working the pole

Now let me tell you a little something about that pic, I was sober. Stone cold sober. I had just had a sip of my first drink of the night when I decided to “work the pole”, I had a fresh tattoo on my lower back and that hat I stole from the door man. Oh, I also had a plastic shark in my cleavage that I stole from one of the other guys in our group. A bachelorette party came in while I was up there and some of them later refused to get up on the pole because they didn’t want to try and follow me. *sniff, sniff, tear* Yes, I have mad pole skills. I guess if I don’t find a job in a few months I can pick up some extra cash at The Gold Cup lol.

I kept on drinking and my behavior only went down from there. Fortunately there aren’t a whole lot more pictures but there are a few more from one bar I don’t even remember being in…which you can imagine what they must be like if I would do that stuff sober. BlogHer ladies–consider this your warning!!

We hit our last bar around 5 am where I bought art with the last $18 dollars in cash I had. Her website seems to be down right now but it’s really cool Tim Burton-esque type stuff. I love it! I think we finally headed back to the hotel around 6:30 am.

Jelly Fish

Our final day was spent in the Aquarium. My next tattoo will be a Leafy Sea Dragon which I saw for the first time in that Aquarium and that Willy drew for me. It’s all tied together

The only* bad part was sitting on the freeway for close to an hour on the drive home.

That trip home was 3 years ago today.

*edited because I forgot the part where Willy got kicked out of the bar for suspected beer thievery. he of course didn’t take anything but the stupid bartender chick already accused him and another guy so the bouncer had to kick them to the curb. the girls had no clue and were searching all over the bar for them (it had multiple levels and areas) and were drunkenly confused as to why we couldn’t find them. when I say drunken-

yeah. This guy kept buying us shots on the dance floor, he was hitting on the short one there and figured he had the best chance if he bought drinks for all of us.

I quit today. They are keeping me to my full two weeks, so at least I have two more weeks of pay checks. I was honest about some of the reasons why I am leaving and held back some others (like knowing about the bodies in the basement). It was really nerve wracking ahead of time but I got through it without saying anything I would regret and with explaining things I think they really needed to hear. I’m not so naive as to believe that anything with actually change because of it but at least it’s done now.

I am going to miss seeing June every single day. I’m going to miss contributing monetarily to the family (this one is HUGE for me) but I feel like I definitely needed to get the hell out of there.

*deep breath*

At least for the next month I won’t be worrying about what I am going to do with my life. I am going to help mom with my nephew. She has some major house projects she needs to get done and with him around there is no way she can do them. I love my nephew but he’s a handful (and I honestly think he might have more going on than just being a handful-something serious) and I’m the only one that is able to get control of him, mostly. Once that’s done…and probably even leading up to that, expect some panicky blogs about what it all means and where the hell I am going. Stupid mid-life.  *kicks it square in the jimmy*

Thank you for all the compliments on the Family Portrait over there. Not half bad for a pic on the timer of my camera. I had it propped on a plastic chair up the hill a bit and then ran over to meet the boys. There are quite a few more pics over there in the flickr feed.

Last night the boy washed his iPod. It didn’t even last a month and he got his ass royally chewed for it. He got his ass chewed more than it has ever been chewed in his 12 years. He hasn’t learned that when mom walks away in anger, it’s best to leave her be. I was already pissed off because I had been trying to get him to go to bed since 9 – it was 9:45 and he was still up, that is when I found the ear phones. At first, I thought it was just those that were ruined and that was enough to set me off. See, as we were loading the clothes in the wash, I started to check his pockets but he admonished me because, “I already checked those Mom”. He is going to be working for the next 8 weeks on chores to buy himself another one.

Still doing well on the cooking more resolution. I made turkey pot pie from scratch last night, it was good but finished so late (since we had just gotten back into town) that I neglected to take a pic. Not sure what is on tonight’s menu.