Other Cast and Crew...

I thought it'd be nice to give you all a glimpse at the folks who make appearances here at my humble abode on the internets. My family.

Mom:

Oh, Mom, Mom, Mom. She's the most wondermous lady ever. I live 2,000 miles away from her yet I talk to her every day. The woman knows everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. All of the Walton's kids' names? Check. The seven dwarves names? Check. The theme song to Bosom Buddies? Check. Where to find corn syrup in the grocery store? Check. Okay, so maybe sometimes I talk to her more than once every day. Sometimes she pretends she's in a hurry, but she loves it.


She's also Zee's Mommom. And Zee will undoubtedly revere her as I did my Mommom. It's genetic, I'm sure.


Dad:

Most of the time, Dad is just your average, every day Poppop.


But if he happens to show up with his hawaiin shirt on, look out. You are about to spend an evening with someone else entirely. Well, okay, maybe he's not another person entirely, just amplified. Meet Corona Dad:


Bro:

Bro is my bestest ever friend. Ever. He and I have known each other longer than any of our other friends. Honestly, when we were little I think we might have hated each other more often than not. But we had our moments.


I think I dug the hell out of him most when he was too young to know it was not entirely cool to help his big sister hang her baby doll clothes out to dry.


But, growing up, we compromised, in between fighting over who rode shotgun, you know, back when kids were allowed to ride shotgun. He used to play house with me using matchbox cars. It was cool.

Our birthdays are three days apart, so we always shared parties. It kind of annoyed me to have my little brother and all of his friends galavanting rowdily while my friends and I tried to play with my newest Barbie. But now, I cherish when we can be together for our birthday party. Like last year:


Sis:

Bro's wife, Sis, has been adopted into our loony flock. It's been official for a while, but it was super-official when I drug her into my frantic paranoia and made her drive over to my Mom's house to make sure my Mom was okay because she hadn't answered her phone for an hour. Mom wasn't there, but Sis did a little investigatin' to ease my worried mind and discovered my Mom was at the dentist. Oops. I never said I didn't have my crazies. Now Mom calls me every time she has a dentist appointment to let me know. Sometimes I think I'm more of a pain in the ass to be related to 2,000 miles away than I ever could be within a 30 mile radius.


Hoot:

Hoot is that person I call when I want to know if I'm right or being an ass. She's also the person who helps me figure out whether being an ass is worth it, for a good cause. Or not. Usually not. Damn her Libran sense of complete and total fairness. But, to be honest, she's probably saved me from myself on plenty of occassions. I'll happily keep her.


And soon she will be moving to Denver. FUCKING WOOT! Zee will have an aunty nearby and that makes me happier than you could ever imagine.


My Belle:

My Belle is the baby of the family. When she came home from the hospital, I kinda thought of her as my baby, too:


Okay...I'm going to give you a second to get over the shock of HOLY SHIT, Zube, I mean, I don't wanna be mean, but you could have played a starring role in The Ugly Duckling. What, you mean glasses half the size of your face and beyond were never in style? Can you belive I picked those out myself. Yeah.

I think I'm pretty fucking cute now. I earned it.

Carrying on...

Hoot and My Belle have always been, and remain still, The Girls. When The Girls were little, I was totally obsessed with styling their hair (probably because I wished I had my OWN fucking hair, note ugly ass haircut above). I can still whip up a kick-ass inside-out French Braid. Just not on myself. Oh, I can't wait 'til Zee grows herself some long hair!


My Belle is now a Mama, too. And it's awesome because it has given us a bond the likes of which we didn't have before, me being ten years her senior.


Now that you've met my near and dear, I'll leave you with one last photo that about sums us up...And thanks to Sis for being the photographer!

The Clan:

Coming soon to a wedding near you! Run!

Some More Things...Or, Exactly 100 More Things...Circa 2007

Because the other list is aging.

1. Dude? Is, like, my favorite word.

2. I have a cousin. We're five months apart. She's always been my best friend. We call each other Bubbaloo. It started one drunken evening when we were returning from down the shore. We still call each other that. Our husbands think we're crazy. Sometimes I call her when our song is on the radio. Runaway Train. Only we changed the lyrics. Runaway Brain.

3. I have another cousin. He and Bro and I hung out all the time. When we found out My Belle was knocked up too, he sent me an e-mail.

hey think about it. three cousins all the same age. all i have to say is i think this has happened before. rule#1. hide the beer. rule # 2, hide the pot. rule#3, no living in the basement. if everyone follows these three rules the little ones should avoid the perils three other cousins close in age came to experience. oh yeah just because this joke hasn't been used in awhile; rule#4 no michael jordan posters.

I have 97 more things to write. Perhaps I'll tell the Michael Jordan tale in one of them.

4. After my junior year in college when I was all sad and depressed, I moved into my parents basement. My college roommate, D (who is due to have a baby in August, Woot!), lived with me. My cousin, Bro, D and I fucking rocked that basement. Suffice it to say that at the end of the summer when I was about to go back to college, my parents decided to clean the basement out and were surprised to find hidden among all of the basement crap empty beer box after empty beer box after empty beer box. Hee. That was a really fun summer despite my sorrows.

5. I love all of my cousins fiercely. I hope Little Zee experiences the same loving loyalty, though she likely won't live near her cousins. I worry about that.

6. Little Zee, whom we called The Turtle while she was chillin' in the womb, actually makes a turtle face quite regularly.



It's nice to know, after the fact, that we nicknamed her so appropriately.

7. Right now, I'm wearing a t-shirt with dribbled formula all over my left boob and sweatpants with spit up on both legs. I'm such a Mom. It's a great feeling.

8. I want so badly for Painting Chef to get knocked up with a keeper, it hurts. Infertility is not fucking fair. I don't know why I got so lucky while others are still in wait.

9. Little Zee squeaks. Only when she squeaks, it doesn't really sound squeakyish. Zube Boy's sister pointed out, she sounds like a pterodactyl. It's awesome. And appropriate. Since her room is covered in dinosaurs.

10. At night, I like to leave the little lights above the stove on. It annoys Zube Boy because those bulbs are special and expensive. But, he lets me get away with it because he knows it reminds me of sleeping over my Mommom's house as a kid. She did the same thing.

11. I have one memory from when I was about twelve. I was delivering papers on my bike. It was raining. I was at the furthest house on my route. The house was way, way back from the street. I comtemplated just throwing the paper in the yard. But I didn't. I walked all the way up to the house and tucked it inside the screen door. For some reason, my twelve year old self told me I wanted to remember that moment for the rest of my life. And I did.

12. Being pregnant somehow managed to shrink my ass. That bums me out. I had a sweet plump ass once upon a time.

13. When I was about sixteen, I went shopping. I was trying on a purple suede skirt and a colorful sheer blouse. The salesgirl was black. When I came out of the dressing room, she proclaimed, "Damn, girl! How'd you get an ass like that? You got a black girl bootie." I blushed. And bought the outfit. I've been strangely proud of my Zube Booty ever since.

14. The diversity in my little town sucks. There are a few black people from Africa who live here. But not many Americans. There's the one guy who works at the liquor store. And another who dj's. I worry about raising Little Zee in a not so diverse place.

15. I work with a guy from Senegal in Africa. His wives live over there. We argue the merits of having one wife or two. I tell him Zube Boy says one wife is enough. He tells me two wives can talk to each other and bother you less. So far no one has won the debate. Different strokes. Though, I do believe Zube Boy would argue that having just one wife who lives in another country is ideal. So maybe we both win.

16. While we're on the subject, when I was in fourth grade I brought a baby name book to school. My friends and I spent some time looking up the meaning of our names. Melanie, a black girl, looked hers up. It said, "dark and melancholy." She said, "I'm not melancholy!" I said, "But you are dark." All the other white kids gasped and looked at Melanie. She laughed her ass off and said, "That's true." I didn't get what the big deal was. Were we supposed to pretend she wasn't dark?

17. It kind of annoys me when people say they're color blind. But I don't feel like it's my place to be annoyed. I mean, if you're color blind, it also seems to me that you'd be blind to the obstacles people of color face.

18. My head is kind of spinning from going back and forth between past and present so quickly. It's not a bad kind of spinning, but a good kind. Like, when you're a kid and you spin around in circles until you get so dizzy you fall down giggling. It's like that.

19. In my dreams, I've always had two boys and a girl.

20. Sometimes I think, though, that having another girl would be cool. Hoot and My Belle are my bestest friends and I'd like that for Zee. But, then again, so is Bro. I'd like that for Zee, too.

21. My favorite number is 21.

22. Sometimes at work, I'll say I'm in a bad mood. And then I laugh. I'm never really in a bad mood. When someone at the front desk pisses me off? My boss knows they must be a real asshole.

23. I had three miscarriages and only missed three days of work. After the third miscarriage, I said I needed some time to myself. I took off three days. I hate missing work.

24. I tried breastfeeding. It was hard. Really, really hard. One night, while Little Zee was crying and hungry and I was crying and feeling dejected, I decided, fuck this. My kid wants food. I can't get it right with the boob. Breastfeeding is healthier, this I know, but it can't be healthy, the two of us sitting here crying. I gave her formula. And when she looked so sweetly up into my eyes while downing her bottle, I knew that I'd made the right decision for us.

25. Really, I wanted to breasfeed because it was cheap. When it wasn't working, I was surprised by how let down and inadequate I felt.

26. My brother and I were formula fed. My sisters were breastfed. Mom says my brother and I never got sick, while the girls did. I know it's just anecdotal, but it makes me feel better.

27. I live at 9,600 feet altitude. This means that you actually DO have to follow the high altitude instructions when you're baking.

28. It also means that when I go down to sea level, I can outdrink the best of them.

29. The song, "Lean on Me," makes me cry every time I hear it.

30. So does "Leather and Lace." That was Zube Boy's and my wedding song. It is totally us.

31. When My Belle went into labor, I was astounded by the urge I felt to run to her. I don't know if it was because she's my sister or because she's the baby. Or maybe it's a combination.

32. I'm in love with you. You who read me. I still can't believe so many people were out there supporting us during the miscarriages and difficult pregnancy. Those who've been around for a while. Those who are new. Those who lurk. I go back and read your comments from the day Little Zee was born and after and cry. It's an "I Appreciate the Everloving Shit Out of You" kind of cry.

33. A girl named Becca commented here. She had three miscarriages and is pregnant with a baby girl. Her first keeper. I think about you Becca. I hope you're doing well. Feel free to let me know when that baby girl makes her debut! And also feel free to send me a photo of her in her "Worth the Wait" onesie.

34. The instant Little Zee was born I knew that I would walk, hop, skip, somersault, cartwheel, or Zube dance to the ends of the earth for her. I knew that before, even. But I didn't FEEL it until a couple of weeks after she was here. I felt like a really shitty Mom because of that. I swore I'd never tell anyone. But I decided to share it after all. It's not abnormal. It doesn't make you a shitty Mom. It's just that people who do experience it usually keep it a secret because they think they're all alone. And they're not.

35. I really and truly didn't believe I'd have a baby. Not even on the operating table getting prepped for my c-section.

36. Zube Boy and I were prepared for our baby to be relatively quiet after the c-section. Maybe a couple of squeaks. The nurses said that c-section babies are sometimes quiet after they're born because they haven't gone through the exercise of birth. When Zee emerged, she screamed her little fucking head off. It was the best gift she could have given me.

37. Zube Boy said I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I she let out her wail. The biggest he's ever heard.

38. Sometimes I'm still shocked to find that I have a baby. But I never doubt it at 4 in the morning when she's hungry.

39. When Zube Boy and I drive long distances, I do most of the driving. I like driving. And I can't sleep in the car anyway. It works for us.

40. I think writing my first list of 100 Things was easier.

41. The day before Little Zee was born, I bought a pumpkin pie because it was Thanksgiving on the Sopranos and they were eating one. I wanted one, too. I headed out 10 minutes before the grocery store closed and brought my prized pregnancy craving home. I was dismayed to find that it had to bake for 70 minutes and cool for two hours. I decided to make it the next day.

42. The next day, I had a baby. On the way to the hospital at 4AM, I wondered to Zube Boy if I would still want that pumpkin pie when I wasn't pregnant anymore.

43. When we came home from the hospital, Zube Boy had made the pumpkin pie. It was indeed yummy.

44. But not as yummy as I'm sure it would have been if I were still knocked up.

45. I'm wondering if you're still wondering if I'll tell you the story about the Michael Jordan poster.

46. The whole time I was pregnant, I would never read pregnancy or parenting magazines in the waiting room of the OB's office. And it kind of sucked because the only other magazines they had were sports. I found a People and an AARP magazine buried among the others. I read the same ones at every appointment.

47. I just went in for my six week check-up and I starting looking for my old standby magazines. Then I remembered that I had a baby. A healthy baby. And I could probably start reading parenting magazines.

48. Sometimes I wonder if my blog is less of a blog and more of a book. With an ending. I'm not sure if I've sort of come to the ending.

49. I think James Gandolfini is hot. Or, wait. No. I think Tony Soprano is hot.

50. I stopped watching The Sopranos after they killed Adriana. I loved her. And it was the last of a bunch of things to piss me off.

51. The first of which was the fact that Jennifer Melfi's rape was never addressed. Not even in subsequent seasons. I guess I sort of projected my own baggage onto the show.

52. The second was that Ralphie wasn't killed sooner. I hated that asshole. I guess I was supposed to. I was so fucking mad when he killed that poor stripper girl. Fucking cock.

53. I have on DVD the episode where Tony finally killed Ralphie. I've watched it many times.

54. I wanted the Sopranos theme song to be the entrance song into our wedding reception. Zube Boy vetoed that. Maybe that was a good thing.

55. The opening credits remind me of home.

56. I went to the grocery store on Friday after my c-section on Wednesday. People were shocked. I felt great.

57. We took Little Zee and went out for cheesesteaks on Saturday. Zee was four days old. When people asked how old she was and we told them, they tsked us for having her out so soon. We started lying and telling people she was two weeks. Some people still tsked. Fuck 'em.

58. When my Mom was here a couple of weeks ago, I thought she would be holding the baby 24/7. She didn't. She helped a lot, don't get me wrong. But what was kind of cool and what I didn't expect was that she enjoyed watching me be a mom. Now that I think about it, it makes sense.

59. When I was little, I cut my own hair. Then I told my Mom that the girl down the street did it because I didn't want to have to hang out with her anymore.

60. For some reason, I'm thinking I may have already put that story in my first 100 Things. But, I'm too lazy to look.

61. I know for a fact that I mentioned my Mommom coming to me in a dream in my original list. She told me I'd have three kids. What I didn't mention, and what I'd never told anyone because I was afraid to say it out loud, was that she looked sad after she said it and added that there would be problems. And indeed there were. I can say it out loud now because Zee is here.

62. During all three failed pregnancies, my Mommom visited my dreams again. Each one revolved around me being hugely pregnant or in labor. I thought each time that it meant that pregnancy was the one. She never visited me during my pregnancy with Zee. In retrospect, I think she was giving me hope that though that pregnancy would fail, I would someday have a child.

63. After the six week ultrasound with Zee, and being told by the doctor that her heartbeat was a little slow and we'd have to check again in a week, I went out to my car and stood there for a few minutes. I worried that I was doomed to lose her, too. Then, from deep inside, I heard a voice. It said, "I am strong. I am strong. I am strong." over and over again. At first I thought it was me. And I said, "Yeah, um, not feeling so much the strong right now." It wouldn't be shushed. I finally realized it wasn't me at all. It was Zee. I clung to that moment the whole time I was pregnant.

64. Zube Boy can't stand paisley bedspreads. Or flowery ones. This is severely limiting to my inner bedroom designer. We have a tan suedish bedspread now, and lucky for us both, I dig it, too.

65. We got a new king bed a few months ago. It is so high, I have a step stool to get into it.

66. I probably don't really need the step stool anymore. It was imperative when I was hugely pregnant. But, it's cute and I don't feel like moving it. So I still use it.

67. My friend in college had a life sized Michael Jordan cardboard stand up thing. She was obsessed with Michael Jordan.

68. Heh.

69. When we were little, ahem, and big, we always had to call our Mom if we were out and about and an ambulence siren went off, so that she would know we were okay. Sometimes, even now, 2,000 miles away, I still call my Mom when I hear an ambulence.

70. When Mom was visiting, she took Zee for a walk. An ambulence siren went off. She called me at the office to tell me that she wasn't sure if I was as crazy as her but she wanted to let me know that she and Zee were fine, despite the ambulence driving up the street. I told her that, ironically enough, the ambulence was heading to the hotel for my coworker who suddenly lost part of his vision.

71. This same coworker crocheted Zee a blanket.


He's, like, this huge former college football player guy. I think that's rad.

72. He's okay. Seeing some specialists right now.

73. My brother and my cousin used to come and visit me at college. We'd go out and get wasted at all the college parties. I had a blue sleeping bag with pink elephants on it and they used to fight over who got to use it. It was fucking funny.

74. Our renters came by to pay the rent after Zee was born. I asked one about his father, who found out he had cancer just months before. He said that he had died a couple of weeks before. I told him I was so sorry. He said, "One life ends and another begins," and pointed to Zee. I thought that was very wise and very stoic for a 20-year-old who'd just lost his father to say.

75. Zube Boy changed Zee's first poopy diaper. We were in the hospital and I couldn't move my legs yet. Those first poops? Are nasty. He was so brave.

76. Okay, so someone, I'm not naming names, might've sauntered across my friend's college dorm room in a drunken stupor and decided that the best place to take a piss was on a life size replica of Michael Jordan.

77. I'm afraid I might have built that story up to be funnier than it actually was. But what's funnier is having a Michael Jordan poster inexplicably displayed at someone's bachelor party.

78. I always give Zee the tousled hair look after her bath. Well, except that one time when I gave her a mohawk. See, I figure, she has plenty of years ahead of her to worry about her hair. Why start now?

79. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Amish. I thought the outfits were cute.

80. I had a huge mole on my back until I was 10. It was horrible and kids would make fun of me. They'd call me moley. I'd always come back with the response my mother had taught me, "It's NOT a mole, it's a BEAUTY mark." I finally had it removed. Now I have a long slash back there. I tell people it's a knife wound.

81. I also had a small mole on the back of my left leg. In school, kids would unknowingly swat at it as we were climbing the stairs in between classes thinking it was a bug. I had it removed in high school. I actually sort of miss it.

82. A few months after Zube Boy and I started dating, I sat down one night and started to tell him that I'd been raped. He let me finish talking and said, "I knew." He'd read through the mountain of books I had and found a few titles on coping with rape. I asked him why he didn't say anything. He said he knew I would tell him when the time was right.

83. Every single fucking day after school, Bro and I would get home and he'd INSIST on watching either Short Circuit, Space Camp, or the Goonies. I hated all three. Now, though, it's kind of a cute thing to remember.

84. My family came out to visit when I first moved to Colorado. My Belle went tumbling down a mountainside. We laughed hysterically. She started limping. It wasn't too swollen. We told her to buck up and quit being a baby. Three days later, she was still limping, so Mom took her to the doctor. She had three broken bones in her foot. Oops. I felt like an ass.

85. For her birthday one year, I told her not to answer her phone and I called and sang various birthday song messages on her machine. One of them was:

Happy Birthday to you!
You wore one shoe!
When you broke your foot,
And I laughed at you!

86. Hoot has decided that instead of getting married and having kids, she wants to be the crazy aunt. I think that's awesome. I sometimes feel guilty for wanting to add more people to an overburdened planet. When other people have no desire to have children, it makes me feel a little less guilty.

87. I have REALLY ugly pinky toes. They're all turned sideways and the nail is bent in the middle. Ew.

88. When it seems not uncomfortable to do so, I share our fertility struggles with people who ask about Zee. I think it's important for people to know that babies don't come easily to everyone.

89. I feel like I missed out on a rite of passage by having a c-section. That feeling was compounded by the fact that my baby sister gave birth the regular way just a few weeks later. I wonder if that feeling will ever dwindle.

90. But, I won't doubt that we made the right decision because the end result is more important.

91. I'd really like to write a book, but I don't know if I have the self-discipline. Blogging is more my style. And now I'm sucking at that.

92. Recently, I've been thinking about the girl who stared at a bottle of pills, contemplating taking them and ending her sorrows, and I thank her for putting those pills down. I had no way of knowing, back then, that I'd ever find joy. But I had faith that I would. I had to have because sleeping forever was pretty damn tempting.

93. I wore Isotoner slippers almost every day of my senior year in high school. They were so cozy.

94. I also brought a travel mug of coffee every day. And it was confiscated almost every day. I thought it was stupid that I couldn't bring coffee with me to school. It became a joke between me and Mr. F, my Coffee Confiscator.

95. One day I was walking down the hall after school before cheerleading practice. I was wearing leggings with umbros over them (ah, the 90's). The principal stopped me. He said that we were not allowed to wear shorts to school. So I promptly removed them. In the hall. In front of him. After all, leggings back then constituded pants, because we all must have been breathing in some polluted fog that made us collectively fashionably stupid, but anyway. He was not impressed.

96. In third grade, this kid started writing his assignment with a blue pen, though the teacher told us to get out our red pens. He had forgotten his red pen. The teacher stopped class and proceeded to yell at him. "Does that pen write red?" He thought for a minute, and wrote the word "RED" on the paper in front of him. "Yes, it does. See?" He was a troublemaker and everyone kind of thought he was stupid. But that was a pretty smart move if you ask me. I wonder about him sometimes. The teacher wasn't impressed, but I was.

97. We have four jeeps. A 2001, a 1994, a 1995 (all Cherokees), and a 1984 CJ7. Now we have a Jeep stroller. And a Jeep baby carrier. I guess you could say we're a jeep family.

98. When Zee was born, Zube Boy called his buddy at work, The Englishman, to tell him the good news. The Englishman announced that we had a baby girl and her name was Cora Jane. One of the guys piped up, "Is her last name seven?" It took Zube Boy a minute to get what he was saying. Then it finally dawned on him. Surprisingly, we did not name our daughter after his offroading jeep, the CJ7.

99. The night that the video for "Thriller" came out, I was at a slumber party. I didn't sleep all night. Not for fear of having my bra frozen because, shit, I don't think I even wore a bra back then, but because the video was so scary.

100. I'm going to publish this before I reread it. Mostly because once I publish things, I'm far too lazy to edit them. And I'd like this to remain untouched.

Fuck the Bright Side

That crazy ass sillhouette chick up there? The one I daydream about hanging out with over frothy adult beverages? I still wager that she makes a kick ass margarita. Well, I stared at her for a bit wondering if her girlie parts worked properly. After deciding that they did, I stabbed her repeatedly in the cooch with my little cursor arrow. It was cathartic. And she didn't even get mad at me because she's got my fucking back like that.

The weird thing about this whole Miscarriage Mess I'm experiencing these days is that some folks want to look at the bright side of it. And, well, I don't. Not yet. Forgive me if I can't seem to find solace in the fact that at least it's happening early or that now I know I can get pregnant. Well, actually, I have to laugh a little at my fertility. I guess Zube Boy CAN glance my way and I'm pregnant. Three times in seven months. It's just that the little buggers fall out. So, laughable maybe, because not much escapes my scathing humor. But, comforting? No. Not in the least.

This 'looking on the bright side of things' got me thinking about rape. When people say to me something to the effect of, "Well at least blah blah blah...It could be worse," it makes me want to say, "Would you say to a rape survivor, 'Well, at least you didn't get pregnant?' or, 'Well, at least you weren't kidnapped and raped repeatedly?' or, ad nauseum?" No. At least, you shouldn't say those things. Rape is fucking horrible no matter how you spin it. So is this miscarriage business.

I'm not saying that people don't say all the wrong things to rape survivors. They do. I know. The moral of the story is this: People don't like to see other people sad and they try sometimes to look on the bright side of things in the hopes that the person hurting will feel better. Which, well, their intentions are good, but you know what they say about good intentions and the road to hell and all. What people don't seem to realize is that sad is just one step on the journey towards healing. And if that step is taken away, or if the journeying person skips it because they feel undeserving of sadness? The journey will be incomplete. And I've been there, done that. The journey CAN eventually be completed. It's just much tougher when you have to go back to square one years after you thought you were on the verge of HEALED.

I was talking to Hoot the other day and I was explaining this to her. She said, and I've never felt prouder, "One of the millions of things I've learned from you is never to judge someone's sad experiences. Whatever is their most sad thing at the time is their most sad thing at the time. Just let them be sad about it." Aw.

And it's true. I remember approximately ten Februarys ago, sitting in my dorm room contemplating whether I wanted a future of custody battles with a rapist or one without the child of a rapist in it. I heard a knock at my door, and yelled, "Come in!" It was a girl from down the hall that I knew fairly well, but not well enough to tell her what was on my mind at the time. She started tearfully explaining how she was caught in a Love Triangle and didn't know which guy to choose. At first, I wanted to be kind of pissed because I had bigger and badder things on my mind. And then I was like, "What the hell good would it do to get pissed and spout of something like, 'Oh yeah, you don't even KNOW what indecision is!' That'd only make her feel guilty and why should she have? She was crying and stressed, and, well, that IS a pretty big decision." I don't know. I guess you could say I learned an important lesson that day.

What I'm trying to say, more to myself than to anyone else, and in a rather disorganized fashion, if you ask me, is that THIS is my most sad thing right now. And I'm NOT going to think about how much worse it could be. I don't need to. Because it's bad enough and if I think about it in terms of me being lucky, that'll only serve the purpose of making me feel guilty for feeling bad. And I shouldn't feel guilty about that. I know better now.

I felt guilty for feeling bad ten years ago. I thought I should be over it. Recovered. I was lucky. I was alive. I was young. I was cute and in college and had my whole damn life ahead of me. So, I pretended I was all good. I rocked my combat boots and baby barrettes and laughed and smiled and played along. Only underneath, I wasn't all good. And pretending to be all good fueled by guilt only put off the REAL healing about five years or so. Too damn long.

So, with three miscarriages under my belt, I'm going to mourn that for as long as feels right. Until I say enough with the mourning; I'm done. Until I want to look on the bright side. Because I will. When I'm ready. And not a day sooner.

PS- You guys rock. That is all.

Where Are Your Ghosts?

"I follow him up the steps to his building, climbing over the ghost of me from last night, up to his apartment on the top floor."

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank

I just finished reading this book, and the above excerpt got me thinking. Jane is referring to the drunken ghost of herself sitting on the stoop of Andrew's apartment complex, wondering if she should ring the doorbell and explain all the ways she fucked up their happily ever after. Instead, she waits until tomorrow, and finds herself, Andrew in arm, climbing up the stairs, stepping over last night's Jane.

Ghosts of me are all over New Jersey. That's kind of why I opted to move 2,000 miles away. I couldn't stand to see the hazy visions of me anymore. Everywhere I went there was the 'Fucked Up' Zube Girl of years past. The shadow; traipsing along I-95 in her genie costume on Halloween blubbering to herself about what the result of the HIV test she'd taken that morning would be and why in the hell did that asshole have to rape her anyway...or puking in the bathroom at McGuin's wondering if she'll go to hell like the priest said that one time in church about women who had abortions.

Sometimes, in fact many times, she is not alone. Zube Girl is accompanied by the most beautiful friends imaginable. Friends who cared enough to be human ponytail holders as she hurled up the Medori Sours she loved so much. Probably because those drinks were such a happy color, and happy was an emotion she sought with the ferocity of an addict pursuing her next high. These friends would whisper to another that someone should go get the car started because she needed to get home.

They'd mouth as though they were in the presence of a child "She's upset about the rape." And keys would fly out of pockets left and right. She was going home. Or I was. Because she was me. And I was her. Together, we were the fucked up girl. The girl who was raped.

When my ghost isn't surrounded by loving friends, she is alone. Those are the worst of the visions that haunt me. I had a brass set of sad balls that convinced me to walk home whenever I felt undeserving of friends. And I felt that way often. And I probably didn't deserve them. I'd suck the happiness right out of them, however unintentionally. Then I'd feel guilty as all hell about it. I wasn't good for them; for their happiness. Ergo, they weren't good for me. You know, guilt and such.

Afraid that if I announced I wanted to leave, someone might protest, or care, I'd silently slide out the back door of a party, and put one foot in front of another. Five miles...twenty six miles. No distance scared me. Usually because I was under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol, and felt as though the strength of my sorrow could carry me anywhere.

Even now, as I prepare to embark on another trip to Jersey, I'm thinking about where I'll see her. Most certainly I'll see her on I-95 because you can't really go a damn place without getting on that highway, especially if you want to buy some cute new clothes at Quakerbridge Mall. Which I do. So I'll have to pass her.

It's always bittersweet to see my ghost because I love her now. I didn't then. And I know that that's why she was so fond of fucking up and of getting fucked up. Because I hated her, and I was all she had.

Maybe someday I'll get close enough to give her a hug and thank her for getting me through those years. I'll tell her that she needn't feel bad that she was imperfect about it. Because here I am, years later, quite okay. Thanks to her.

Until then, I'll just love her for who she was. Who I am. However imperfect.