Jessica Alba is an Idiot

But you knew that, I know.

Anyway, I'm not sure why she named her child HONOR (well, I am sure, but it's a vomitous reason--some James Bond villainess or something), but she did, so there you go. And, according to US, while Jessica is Latina, she herself does not speak Spanish. However, that does not stop her from wanting poor Honor from being bilingual. Which is all very noble and envy-inducing (I wish *I* spoke more than one language, and dork does not count!), but according to Jessica, she doesn't want Honor to even KNOW English before preschool.

A) How does Jessica propose to teach Spanish to her daughter when herself does not speak it?
B) How does Jessica propose to communicate with her fluent in Spanish but not English daughter if Jessica herself does not speak Spanish?

When Will There Be News?

Every time my phone beeps a text I anxiously check it. My sister's husband sent me an email and I frantically clicked on it, only to discover it was a (hilarious, don't get me wrong) video clip of the Wire. But enough about the Wire, I'm going to be an aunt!! When, you ask? Well...soon. Today. Tomorrow. This week. I don't know. According to my sister's calculations, today (September 29) was the due date. According to the OB, Thursday (Oct 2) is the date. All that we know is that soon she (yep, it's a girl!) will be here.

Given my somewhat cynical-natured self, I ordinarily would feel a bit foolish and defensive about the fact every time I try to put my thoughts about this process into words, I start crying. And I guess I DO feel embarrassed, a wee bit, about it. But just knowing it's something my sister has wanted for so long, and knowing it's almost here, and just imagining how it's going to be when she arrives and I get to see her grow and become the wonderful awesome happy person I know she'll be....it's amazingly cool.

You know what it is? It's the promise and possibility. It's knowing that I'm 35 now, and old (I'm kidding, sort of), and I've made choices and done things both good and bad...and knowing that there is going to be someone in our family to go through that all for the first time, it just makes me so emotional.

I know she is going to be loved, and happy, and beautiful. And I hope she holds on to that security she will have as an infant and not lose it to time and bad experiences and bad people. I hope that tears are transient but happiness and hope is everlasting.

And yes, this whole thing is flowery and sentimental, but....it's my sister. And her (almost born) baby!

So...um, do you hate me?

I know I haven't talked to you in ages. But it's nothing personal, really!! Life just sometimes gets all backed up and the idea of writing is overwhelming because if we were in touch regularly it wouldn't be so bad to keep you up to date...but when it's been two months, the idea of telling you everything that's happened just makes my eyes crossed.

Suffice to say it's been busy. Ultimately fine, but busy.

Skipping over things like my birthday and the start of a new school year, teaching is going pretty well this year. Like, I actually have control over my class and everything. And I had to do a presentation in a school today and even though they were all talking and talking and talking I didn't bust out in hives and want to throw up like usual. Look at me, learning and growing once more. Miss Alli moved here....um, at some point (beginning of July?) and it's been rocking like Bob. It's just great to have her around and another good friend to see on a regular basis. My niece will be born really, really soon. I went kayaking and parasailing on my vacation. I am, as always, struggling with staying on task and dedicated to exercising and eating well. And, of course, let's not forget such broad and generic things as "accepting myself as I am" and "living in the present, not looking too far into the future and getting stressed."

Hopefully I will be more dedicated to the task at hand...documenting my life on a semi-regular basis in a somewhat engaging and humorous way. One can always hope, at least.

I'm turning 35....ALL BY MYSELF

This isn't some Bridget Jones wailing about being alone thing. This is seriously real. I had this fantastic plan to go to the beach for a week and have loads of people join me, from the professor to Gill to the lawyer to my sister, Joey F, and my niece in utero....and of course, Deliriously Awesome. I was going to be 35, yo! I can run for president and everything!

Well, fast-forward to the actual event, and I've got the lawyer and my sister's family. The professor is in Italy, Gill has no more vacation days, my friend the musician never responded, and of course DA is the ex. I love the people who ARE coming and I know I'm going to have a great time with everybody, so I'm not feeling sad...except for the part where nobody shows up until the day AFTER my birthday. Um?

I'm not a big "give me lots of presents" type person (except for the time I invited people to my slumber birthday party and underneath "what to bring," I wrote "sleeping bag, pillow, present"....BUT I WAS NINE, people). But I AM into doing fun things ON my birthday. And I probably WILL manage to find fun things to do, being at the beach and all. Just....by myself.

I'm not yet depressed about that fact. I'm sort of a bit puzzled. I'm curious to see how I will feel on the actual day. It might be weird. It might not. But, I've never spent time in a strange place by myself (it doesn't count when a canceled flight delays you overnight somewhere), much less on my birthday. So I have no clue what to expect.

I guess, if nothing else, it will be an experience. Right?

I Had Surgery and a Breakup in One Month and I Didn't Even Get a T-Shirt

Of course, I DID get a brand-new stomach, so I guess that's what matters, right? In retrospect, I wish I'd documented the process more, both in words and in photos, not necessarily to post the latter (nobody needs to see the BEFORE!), but just because already it seems like so long ago that I had the procedure. But it wasn't--it was a mere 6 weeks ago! And I'm a whole new person! (Not really.)

As best as I can remember, it was never absolutely HORRENDOUS. I was scared right before it, but on the actual day I was nothing but excited. I went in at 6:30 a.m., they did all kinds of intake stuff and, my personal favorite, confirmed approximately 2,000 times what I was getting (as the lawyer, formerly law student texted, can you imagine if they'd done the wrong thing? Leg amputations! Breast implants!), and walked me to the operating table. I really DID go out like a light, and the next thing I knew it was 3.5 hours later and I was being asked to cough. Which, let me say, wasn't the best feeling in the world.

The next few days were a hazy cloud of sleeping, watching DVDs, reading, and eating raspberry blondies. At the worst, it felt like I'd done a bajillion crunches--SORE stomach muscles, but not agonizing pain. My mood was all over the place, in part because I didn't know what to expect in terms of appearance (the first time I was unbandaged, three days later, I looked like a giant lumpy loaf of bread and I almost cried), in part because I (natch) didn't feel well, in part because Mr Deliriously Awesome (now ex-DA) was sick too so didn't come to be with me as soon as we'd thought he would.

Anyway, then the professor came for the second week to be with me. Even though he was bored out of his mind by the end, it was helpful to ME because he (gently) forced me to take more risks and stop babying myself quite to the same degree my parents had done. By the time he left, I went back to work, albeit for only a few hours a day at first, coming home afterwards to crash in exhaustion.

But gradually the moods all evened out, my strength started to come back, but then of course we broke up, which hurt like hell, but also now feels kind of hazy and in the past...to be flowerly and overly melodramatic, they hacked up my body--which I inexplicably CHOSE to have done to me--and while I was recovering from that, my heart was broken. (Seriously, I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's how it felt at the time.) So then I had to sort of take a step back and reassess again.

Now, physically and emotionally, I am okay. My first time exercising consisted of slow treadmill walking for 30 minutes, and now I'm up to faster treadmill walking (at huge inclines, no less!) for 70, and today I even JOGGED (slowly!) for a grand total of 1 minute 15 seconds. My stomach is less swelled (though apparently will go down even more!) and I can see it looks more like a regular person's. I don't have the dreaded muffin top anymore! I got the all-clear yesterday to start doing high-impact stuff again, so I'm ready for that.

As for ex-DA, what can I say. After all my ups and downs with boys since moving back, he's the first person I'd actually LOVED since Cincinnati Boy. I will never absolutely 100% understand why he messed it up, but I can't sit around pining for him. I'm trying to move on, and mostly succeeding. The experience actually, despite ending badly, was REALLY positive in a lot of ways. One, he pretty much embodied everything I'd wanted in a boy but never thought existed in one person, which gives me hope I can find that again. Two, *I* was healthy and non-clingy and crazy, even if he turned out to be kind of mentally in a bad place. So that is all I can do...know that I did the best I could and that even knowing what I know now...I would absolutely do it again. No regrets, right?

BTW, that holds true for my surgery as well. Just saying.

Ne Snippet Pas

On the 4th of July, according to Yahoo!, the top three things searched were:

Firework Safety
Rihanna
Campaign Patriotism

Where to start? That Rihanna was in between the two 4th of July-related topics? That for whatever reason, on this day, she was the #2 most popular thing searched for? My brain, it does not understand.

Dear God, it's Come to This

Yeah that's right bitches, I'm quoting Madonna lyrics rather than writing out my own version of the depressing end of yet another "relationship." The least self-pitying but simultaneously candid version (without spilling all my private crap out to the world at large) that I can manage: We were in love, it was awesome and amazing, I thought we'd get married (...in two years or so, don't worry, I wasn't THAT crazy), I trusted him and loved him more than anybody I've ever known, including the 5-year Cincinnati Boy. And then it was over for reasons far beyond my control. The only positive thing is that the transformation from completely devastated to sometimes devastated/sometimes ok hasn't been as long and overwhelmingly hopeless as it's been in the past. So, yay for improved mental health?

**
Just one of those things
When everything goes incredible
And all is beautiful (Can't get my head around, I need to think about it)
And one of those things
That used to get you down
Now have no effect at all
Cause life is beautiful (Can't get my head around it, I need to think about it)
Remembering the very first time
You caught that someone special's eye
And all of your cares dropped
And all of the world just stopped (I hope)
I want to go back to then
Got to figure out how, got to remember when I felt it, it thrilled me
I want it, to fill me
Just one of those things
When everything goes incredible
And all is beautiful (Can't get my head around, I need to think about it)
And one of those things
That used to get you down
Now have no effect at all
Cause life is beautiful (Can't get my head around it, I need to think about it)
**
Coming...okay, I was going to write SOON, but let's be realistic...EVENTUALLY: post-surgery reflections and experiences!