overdue honest scrap

I’ve been awarded the Honest Scrap award by the lovely, brilliant and charming Loribeth, noswimmers, Blood Signs, and Kate. And because I’m lazy, and also too dumb to figure out how to get the jpg copied and pasted, it took me this long to post the prize and my response. Fortunately for me, the aforementioned Kate is a Mac genius (in addition to her many other kinds of genius) and so she send me the image file along with an explanation of how to do it for next time.

In addition to getting the awesomely retro icon to display on your blog, the other privilege of winning the Honest Scrap award is posting 10 honest things about yourself, which sort of makes me laugh cause that’s about all I write about here, much to the chagrin of people who find my blog by searching “how to get fucked up on things you have around the house.” I don’t know what they are looking for – perhaps there is a secret intoxicating blend of the right proportions of baking soda, dog food, cumin and shampoo that I don’t know about. I guess I just made it even easier for them to find me, but I don’t think there’s too much risk of people I know in real life googling that phrase and finding my blog. I have a strong sense that everyone I know has a pretty good idea of how to get fucked up without googling. Ahem.

1. Ever since I was a brooding 16 year old reading Camus, I’ve wanted to go to North Africa. 
2. I am constantly making up new words to old songs that I can sing to and about my dog, Lucky. My most recent triumph was re-lyricizing Pink Floyd’s “Money” to be all about his gross habits. Sample line:  Lucky! You have gingiviiiii-tis! And you lick your wang like it’s going out of style!
3. I got a Braun Sil.k-Ep.il for my birthday and I love it and will be forever indebted to Lori for her recommendation over at All Thumbs Review.
4. We are still not completely unpacked from our move in November. Sigh. 
5. I’m obsessed by the Dir.ect B.uy commercials and I nurture a deep and abiding dislike for everyone who appears in them, except for one woman who I sort of like for no clear reason.
6. I’d like to learn how to do some basic home repair like plumbing and wiring. Just cause.
7. I met my husband when I was a waitress slinging beer and he was being  slung beer.  
8. Despite what I said a few posts ago about how much it blows being an adult, I get happier as I get older. Whew!
9. I’m starting to have an idea about what I’d like to be when I grow up, but it’s all still very fuzzy. Maybe that’s because what I really want to be is a house wife, and everything else holds little appeal for me beyond the money. 
10. I consider myself a grammar nerd but I still think I use too many commas, and am ashamed to say that the rules of comma use are not really clear to me. 

Now is the part where I’m supposed to pick 7 people whose blogs I find brilliant in content or design. In no particular order, I bestow the right to display the above icon and the privilege/obligation of posting a response upon:

Eden at Life….It’s Nothing Like the Brochure. If you don’t read Eden’s blog, you should. She can speak her truth so powerfully and will make you pee your pants and cry your eyes out. Often in the same post.

Pam at Blood Signs. Brilliant, brave, and beautiful. She can tell a story that is at once an intricate tapestry and a sun-bleached skeleton. She makes me want to work on becoming a better writer.

Jendeis at Sell Crazy Someplace Else. Jendeis is a woman with a tremendous brain and a huge heart, and the courage to lay it all down on her blog. She rocks super hard, offering support even when she’s going through some seriously rough times. I heart Jendeis.

s.e. at Riding the Roller Coaster. s.e. has the amazing ability to stay in the heart space and write it all down. Her spirit is a shining light to me and to so many others here in blogland, and I’m lucky to call her my friend.

circlesbecomeme at My scar smiles at me, I don’t always smile back. This is a woman who has gone through and continues to go through so much in life. And she is a woman who manages to find joy and lusciousness in the simplicity of the world around her. The story of her life and the photos that often accompany it on her blog are like a loaf of freshly baked bread – so perfectly beautiful and pure that it can bring tears to your eyes as it nourishes you.

Spicy Sister.  Spicy’s not blogging quite so much these days,  as she is busy being a new mama to her beautiful son, Zane. But she continues to write straight from her radiant heart. There is no filler with Spicy Sister; everything has been distilled to its very essence.

Io at Who Shot My Stork?  She’s back to blogging after a break, and I couldn’t be happier. Io is one of the first bloggers I connected with and when she became my friend way back in those early days, I felt like a dorky 13 year old being called up to hang with the cool kids.  She’s a funny, angry, sweet girl and is perfectly honest and scrappy, just like this award.

And if you’re one of the people who haven’t yet received this award, jump right in. I am somewhat of an anarchist when it comes to memes and awards – I reckon if you want to do it, you shouldn’t have to wait for someone to tag you.

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something funny about the octuplets

I haven’t written about them, and I probably won’t, since it’s all been said before by people much cleverer than I. But I could not resist sharing this. 

I’m still laughing. Even though, like many jokes on The Onion, it falls just on the hilarious side of offensive.

in the spotlight

How do you know you’ve become a lazy blogger? When you miss your own blogoversary. It was on Valentine’s Day, and I had thought a lot about it before it came and then last Saturday I just completely blanked on it. The last year of blogging has been amazing, and I’m so grateful for all of you. I promise I’ll have a real kumbaya session on this sometime soon, really. But for the moment, it seems I’ve prefered to keep a low profile rather than face my glum mood over the state of my life at the moment. Nothing earth shattering by any stretch, but just the profound weariness of keeping body and soul together. And marriage and family and dog and work and support group and yoga and dancing and friendships.  Despite my best intentions, I’ve become sort of busy lately, and when I’m not busy, I’m exhausted from the emotional work of waiting and of life in general. 

I’ve said it before, and no doubt I’ll say it again. Being an adult kind of blows. 

I’ve sort of tipped over into the state of doing too much and not wanting to just be with myself and my true feelings. The quietness and the fuzzy brain I talked about in the last post seem to be precursors to depression and despair for me, and hopefully next time I’ll pay more attention to that. It’s just that it’s so nice to get a break from anxiety or worry or obsession that it’s hard to catch myself as I start slipping into the funk that inevitably follows those times where my brain is turned off.  And I’ve been so aware lately of how much my life has been taken over by my single mindedness – being unable to plan anything more than a month in advance, our finances, my ability to have a conversation.

In many ways, I’ve been feeling a lot like I did when I returned from Japan. Having lived overseas for three years, coming back was really hard. Much, much harder than leaving. Because when I first went to Japan, I expected to feel out of place – I knew who I was, more or less, but naturally it takes time to figure out how to fit in to a new workplace, new culture, new language. But I was bringing myself into that situation, offering myself to the experience, and extending myself compassion when I didn’t know what to do.  Returning was, in so many ways, the exact opposite. Here I was, in my hometown, surrounded by people I’d known for years, in familiar territory. The problem was that I didn’t know who I was anymore. I felt like who I thought I was had been eclipsed by my experience, by my story, by my circumstances.  I felt like I didn’t exist anymore. 

Lately, I feel like I don’t exist anymore. Like all I am is my desire to have a baby and the path I’ve chosen to try to make that happen. Like all I am is this cycle, and then the next one, and the next one. I feel like I’m in a spotlight, unable to see beyond the little puddle of light around me, consisting of acupuncture appointments and cycle days and morning temperatures and the creased foreheads of worried people around me, checking in to see that I’m ok. But beyond that it’s just darkness. Impenetrable and perplexing darkness. 

I don’t mean to say that I’m in the depths of despair. In some ways, that might be easier. Emotions come and go, I know that. But what about my life? What about me? Will I feel whole again?

quiet, love, and photos

Quiet. Things are quiet. Despite the raging hot flashes and debilitating constipation I seem to get from the Clomid, things are quiet. I seem to have hit the off switch on my brain, and I don’t know how to turn it back on. I was wondering today whether I have become completely numb or whether I’ve just reached a perfect state of calm. Probably the former, but I guess I’ll take that over angst. I could use a break from angst. 

I head out of town tomorrow to see my nephew. He’s turning 5 tomorrow and I am the proudest Tantie ever. It seems like just yesterday I was watching him be born. And now he is a beautiful boy who loves me so much and sends me emails that he types himself (copying what his mom has written down, but still it’s pretty damn clever if you ask me.) Even though it sometimes hurts to realize how much time has passed and I still don’t have my own child, the love I have for him and for my other nephews does heal that longing to some extent. Truthfully, it heals and makes the longing even harder to bear, all at the same time. That love still heals, though. 

Had my scan today and will be doing our 6th IUI on Sunday. I’m glad they’re giving me an extra day – my follicle today was 19.2mm and my lining was 5.7mm, almost exactly the same as last month, but for whatever reason they told me to hold off on the trigger until tomorrow. My acupuncturist seems to think this is a good idea, too, and I was prepared to go in, guns blazing, today to advocate for this, and I did speak up for myself to suggest it, but I let them think it was all their idea. Ha. 

Think warm and fertile thoughts for me, dear internets. Hopefully I’ll find my brain’s switch this weekend and have something to write for you soon.  Here are some pictures to occupy you in the meantime – the first is of my backyard after a bunch of snow a few weeks ago, and the second is my new haircut. Which haircut I can honestly say that I LUUUUUUUUUUURRRRVE.