From the Middle of Everywhere

Oh My God. This is what we have done.

2011-05-21T00:01:00.003-06:00

First, let it be noted that I debated for quite some time about whether I should blog my birth experience. One, because it seems kinda cliché. Every woman on the planet who has given birth seems to have also written about it. Women who have never felt the urge to put two words together on paper and their only written communication consists primarily of phrases like “omg” and “lol” over text message will find the ability deep within themselves to blog out their birth experience. We all know I avoid clichés like the plague. Two, because birthing a child involves lady business. I have a deep-seated conservative, Catholic ideology that I will never be able to shake. Try as I might, sometimes I cannot help being embarrassed/ashamed/confused about the womanlyness that God has bestowed upon me. I DO NOT talk about my parts. Especially on the internet. Thanks Eve.

I quickly realized that as long as I am a mother, I will never completely avoid being a cliché. I have found that we mamas cannot stop behaving in some kind of predetermined pattern. Apparently this is called instinct and most women are born with it. I’m planning a trip very soon to JC Penny to try on some Mom Jeans. Also, once you give birth you realize that there is no discretion involving your lovely ladyness. Everyone and anyone is up there and you might as well get over it and save yourself a lot of grief.

So here it is, three and a half months after little Luke came into this world, I’ve finally wrapped my head around the fact that I am indeed a giver of life and here is the story of how he got here:

I think I was pregnant forever. There was a point when I couldn’t remember there ever being a time when I wasn’t pregnant. When I first went to see my midwife, she gave me a due date of January 15. My first ultrasound put my due date at January 27, but throughout my pregnancy my midwife maintained that she thought the baby would be born around the 15^th. Since she accurately guessed that the baby was a boy just by hearing her heartbeat, I chose to trust her majestic earthy years of experience over medical science. I adamantly told everyone that the baby was due on the 15^th of January, I was going to have a little Capricorn. After January 15^th came and went I woke up every morning thinking that that day would be the day only to sadly watch the minutes tick into midnight babyless. When January 27^th came and went I got outwardly impatient and started doing everything I could think of to urge the baby to come on out. By the way, sex does not work. This must be a myth that men came up with because they know that once the kid is here you will be off-limits for a good two months.

I REFUSED to carry the baby until February.

When February rolled around my midwife encouraged me to induce labor. Partially because the baby was looking BIG. I had one final ultrasound that estimated he was around nine pounds. Mostly, though, because I was looking big. I was not one of those cute, glamorous pregnant women. I had the distinct pleasure of being pregnant at the same time as the outrageously beautiful Penelope Cruz, and the paparazzi could not get enough of her looking like a stunning curvaceous mamacita flaunting her bump on the beach. I looked more like a gordita. I was so swollen that my face turned blue. I had neck rolls. It was disgusting. I had a very detailed birth plan and inducing labor was not part of it. I really wanted to have a drug free natural birth but I was so tired and I just wanted the kid out, plus the midwife assured me that I could go without pain meds, even if we induced, if that’s what I really wanted.

We decided to induce on February 3, which happened to be the coldest day of my entire life. This is not an exaggeration. It was so cold that the heater cracked the windshield on our family-friendly station wagon and the entire state suffered a natural gas shortage. I arrived at the hospital fully prepared for the journey at hand. I brought my birth plan printed in triplicate, with the finer points also reduced to 3x5 index cards, as well as an iPod loaded with soothing music for welcoming my son into the world and an entire bag full of supplies I had packed weeks ahead of time and deemed absolutely necessary.

I was adamantly opposed to using pitocin, the drug often used to induce labor so I agreed to use a drug called misoprostal, which is a drug normally used to treat ulcers, but somehow they figured out that if you stick it up there it makes the baby come. I would really like to know what led that experiment: “Hey what would happen if we stuck ulcer drugs up pregnant women’s vaginas?” I got my first dose of miso at around 11 am, and after hours and hours of walking around the hospital with no progress I was given another dose around 8 pm and I dozed off, trying to save my energy for the long night ahead. At around midnight I woke up and I was FINALLY having contractions around 4 minutes apart and I lost my mucus plug (yuck). Yes! I was in labor! The nurse came in and I told her what I’d discovered and she told me I wasn’t dilated enough to be in labor and that I needed another dose of miso. So, because apparently this nurse knows more about my body than I do, I let her go ahead with giving me another dose of the drug even though I felt like it really wasn’t necessary. She also readjusted my fetal monitor because they baby was moving away from it and they kept losing his signal. I practiced breathing and I was super proud of myself for getting through the contractions like a champ. They were painful, but not skull crushing painful. This wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

Around 3 am my water broke and I was even more excited. The baby was coming! The baby was coming! I called in the nurse who became concerned because the baby still kept moving around too much and she and the midwife on duty decided that they would need to put me on an internal fetal monitor. As they were setting this up, the contractions suddenly, without warning, got intensely, thereisnowayimgoingtolivethroughthis painful. My whole body felt like it was in a vice and my legs could not stop shaking. So this was labor. Holy fuck.

The internal monitor did not remedy the “baby is moving too much situation” and they determined that that his heartbeat was actually stopping – they weren’t just losing a signal, luckily it would quickly recover. So they put me on oxygen and started making my try different positions “to get the baby off the cord”. As I was on my hands and knees, trying to support my massive pregnancy weight on my shaking legs and not pass out from the pain, the baby’s heartbeat stopped completely and did not recover.

The situation quickly went from just a midwife and a nurse to what seemed like the entire hospital staff in the room. I don’t know how everyone got there, but there was a lot of running. I couldn’t keep track of faces or hear what anyone was saying. It was chaos. I was being poked by a seemingly endless series of needles and people kept shoving papers in my face for me to sign. The OBGYN seemed to appear out of thin air and told me that we were going to have to deliver the baby via c-section. For reasons I will never understand, possibly because of the blinding pain and confusion I was going through, or maybe just a genetic predisposition to stubbornness, I still thought there might be a way to salvage my carefully thought-out birth plan and I asked the doctor if I could have five minutes to think about it. The doc gave me probably the most serious look I have ever seen in my life and said “You can have five minutes to think about it, but I’m going to go prep the OR. You have less than 20 minutes before you lose this baby.”

This was when I just let go of everything. I knew that I had absolutely no control over the situation and whatever was going to happen was going to happen. The only thing I could think of doing was pray the Hail Mary over and over again while I was being wheeled to the OR and I decided not to say a word until the whole ordeal was over. I was convinced that my body had failed me and quiet was the only thing I knew for sure I was capable of.

I was given a massive epidural and I didn’t even have time to think about the giant needle being jammed up my spine because the drugs instantly calmed me into a painless oblivion I had not planned on needing. I started having all sorts of blissful thoughts and was only vaguely aware that I was about to become a mother. It was absolutely hilarious that the nurses forgot to shave me and had to go the razor from the nurses’ station. Apparently they have one razor for all the patients. It was delightful that they were missing a crucial legal document and there was a scuffle between the doctor and a nurse as to whether they could proceed with the surgery without it. (The doctor won and I signed the document later). I was vaguely aware that my body was being cut open and that the tools that the doctor was calling for were responsible for this they sounded sharp.

I became aware of the fact the radio was on and that Hotel California by The Eagles was being played and I this seemed like the perfect moment to break my vow of silence so I said, “I fucking hate The Eagles.” This was a great joke because I was quoting the The Big Lebowski and everybody loves that fine piece of cinema. However, nobody else thought it was funny as this was also the moment that my son stuck his little hand out and was then pulled from my body into this world. There were a lot of OH MY GODs from the operators and a small bundle was passed to a group of NICU nurses who began to work furiously over it. What the hell just happened?

Then a tiny cry filled the room and reality hit. I was a mother. I was shown a tiny little human, who was already asking for food via his trademark 'milk face' and I loved him forever. All of the waiting, planning and song picking, and I had just become a parent during the vocal styling of Don Henley. And it was the most amazing moment of my life.

I later learned that when they cut me open they discovered that not only did Lucas have the cord crisscrossed over his chest, but when he dropped into the birth canal he took his hand and some of the cord with him and had it stuck between his hand and his head. Hand in birth canal = bad. Cord in birth canal = bad. Both = very bad. Every time I would have a contraction this combination would constrict the cord and cut off the baby’s oxygen, and that is why he was in distress. We got him out just in time. We got very, very lucky.

Despite a scarily low initial APGAR score, Lucas turned out to be a healthy, hearty 8lb 2oz eating machine and doesn’t seem to have suffered any ill-effects from his dramatic entry into the world. He is also the most amazing thing to ever happen, ever and everything he does is unique and wonderful. He might be the only baby that was ever born ever as I am the first mother to ever be a mother ever.

His mama, with the aid of some healthy doses of Percocet has also recovered. Although she still cries every time she hears Hotel California. She’ll probably never get over that.

OH MY GOD. What have we done?

2010-09-16T21:39:00.002-06:00

It was exactly a year ago that I found myself obsessively running 5 miles every morning and surviving off of about 500 calories a day trying to lose an inhuman amount of weight in a very short amount of time. I was also doing daily facials and exfoliating like a madwoman. I know, it sounds like the beginning of a Lifetime movie which involves some kind of dramatic family intervention and me ending up at resort-like rehab facility and through some serious soul searching I heroically overcome my demons. I wasn't crazy. I was just getting married. And I had to look perfect, and this was the most important thing in the entire world. Ever. I did, and it was.

Fast forward to 8 months of marital bliss: Memorial day weekend. The husband and I decided to go see the Symphony under the Stars because it's the the kind of thing young newlyweds do because they are young and in love. It was also SALUTE TO AMERICA night and what is more romantic than the 1812 Overture? (Side note: how come we associate that piece with patriotism? Wasn't it written for RUSSIA's independence?) Anyway, we had bought a terrible yet overpriced bottle of wine and I poured us each a glass and then promptly knocked the bottle of wine over into grass leaving me with a single Dixie cup of rancid grape juice, which was ok because all those cannons were giving me a headache anyway.

The next morning I woke up and I was HUNGOVER. I couldn't believe that I got that sick off of a single glass of wine -- but it was really bad wine so I figured it was the tannins or the sulfates or something. As the day wore on I drank a gallon of water and I still didn't feel any better. I tried to eat a turkey sandwich and it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever tasted. I felt like crap, but something else started nagging at the back of my mind: when exactly was my last period? I added up the weeks and I was late. My pill prescription had just expired and I hadn't had a chance to get to the Dr. yet - but we were using alternate methods of birth control and I knew that it takes your body some time get back on track so I tried to tell myself not to freak out over nothing. The chances of me being pregnant were one in a billion or some official statistic like that.

But I couldn't get the thought out of my head. The next day I had the husband drive me to Walgreens and I picked up a 3 pack of EPT pregnancy tests. He figured I was being my normal drama queen self but he knew if he didn't just let me prove it to myself that I wasn't pregnant I'd just spend the rest of the weekend making both of us miserable. When we got home he actually offered me a beer before I took the test.

Pregnancy test instructions are pretty simple. You pee on the stick and wait five minutes and then you know your future. So I took the test and within seconds a blue plus sign appeared. I figured I'd done something wrong -- because I was getting a result before the recommended wait time. I threw that test out and took another one -- this time I turned it over and waited the requisite five minutes before I looked at the results. Another plus sign. At this point I re-read the entire box, the directions in English and in Spanish and then looked up the directions again online for good measure because I knew I had to be reading the test wrong. They all confirmed that plus sign = pregnant. So I then I turned the test upside down, looked at it from a 75 degree angle and 10 feet back - still a plus sign. I then confirmed with my husband that I did indeed know what a plus sign looked like because I've never been that good at math. Things were getting strange. The next Tuesday before I went to work I took another test -- this one came up with a totally blank result even half an hour later. So I knew for sure I did something wrong -- the logical conclusion was that I just didn't know how to take a pregnancy test. When I got home from work that night I looked at that test, and it had somehow developed a plus sign too. Hmm...

It was time to go to the Dr. because something must be wrong. I knew she was just going to tell me that my hormones were out of whack because I'd just gone off the pill and to stop freaking out. Instead she told me I was 8 weeks pregnant. I wasn't just pregnant, I was pretty darn pregnant. That night I went home and read everything on the entire Internet about pregnancy. Turns out I had pretty much every single pregnancy symptom in recorded history . I'd just been too oblivious to figure it out on my own.

My first reaction was fear. I had not been taking care of myself for the past 8 weeks and I was terrified that I'd hurt my baby somehow. I'd been drinking and smoking a little and god knows what kind of junk I'd been eating. Plus, the internets are particularly cruel to pregnant women - there are 5 million super rare things that can happen to a developing baby that WebMd will tell you for sure are all happening. Thankfully an early ultrasound and an understanding midwife confirmed that the baby was healthy and developing on track.

My second reaction was fear. My husband and I were not equipped to have a baby. He had just finished up his first year of grad school and I was just getting started with my career. We had a carefree existence of randomly taking off on the weekends and drinking for 3 days straight in Vegas. Don't get me wrong, we wanted kids, just later. I had always said that I wanted to be at least 30 years older than my first child -- and we were ahead of schedule. Hell, we didn't have the kind of car you could put a child in.

However, my most intense reaction was pure love. I was instantly and forever attached to this tiny being developing inside of me. I knew that whatever it was I used to think my future was had been all wrong. This was the most right, most incredible thing that had ever happened to me. I instantly devoted my life to giving this child the best life possible. I find myself crying daily at the unfathomable miracle that a baby is -- how so many things in the world had to come together at just the perfect moment to create this little life. And although I knew that I loved my husband from the moment I first saw him, I began to love him on an entirely different level once I found out he was going to be the father of my child. It's like ultralove or something . All I know is that I used to think I knew what love was, and now I know I had no idea.

I guess I've become a cliche. And I don't care.

So now as I approach my first wedding anniversary I'm fatter than I've ever been in my life. I couldn't run five miles even if my feet didn't ache in every pair of shoes I own and I have skin like a thirteen-year-old. And it is the most perfect thing. Ever.

Not Everybody is Catholic

2010-01-24T18:17:00.005-07:00

And other religious lessons learned in small-town New Mexico

When Mike and I decided to get married we were faced with quite the conundrum: My parents said that their only request was that we get married in the Catholic Church. This "tiny request" presented us with quite the conundrum, although Mike was raised Catholic he was not confirmed. Further, Mike and I were already living together and couldn't even consider ourselves Christmas and Easter Catholics, big no-nos that would require major reconciliation in most churches before we'd be allowed to walk down the aisle. We looked around at churches and finally found a liberal church that would let us get hitched with minimal adherence to Vatican doctrine. I was delighted with our new church's lack of pews and what can only be described as "Happy Dancing Jesus" in place of the crucified Christ that adorns most Catholic churches.

Despite the church's lack of conventional furniture I was still not prepared for our first and only meeting with the Priest. We walked into his office and the first things I noticed were his lack of a collar, the giant bottle of gin and a giant, friendly chocolate lab. He started off the conversation by asking if I was on birth control and I freaked because I was afraid if I told the truth we'd be kicked out right then and there. Imagine my surprise when he encouraged me to remain on the pill until I was ready to have children, and further explained that this wasn't the 50's when we knew nothing about child psychology and we weren't "raising a farm" so I should not feel obligated to have tons and tons of children. My jaw nearly hit the ground when he said that we should encourage said children to explore their sexuality and to never make them feel ashamed for masturbating. At this point I gave a quick look at the priest's pupils because I was sure he was on acid. After I confirmed his sobriety and got over the sheer embarrassment of having such a conversation with a priest I realized that even not all Catholics are the same and started thinking other times when I realized that not everyone believed exactly what I believed.

Lutherans make the best snacks

The first time I ever went to a Lutheran church was when I was 4 or 5 years old and my mom sent me to a vacation bible school at a church a few blocks from our house. I must have been a particularly annoying child that summer for my mom to hand me over to the Lutherans, but nonetheless, I LOVED that place. Particularly because every time we passed the church, which was often because you couldn't leave our neighborhood without passing it, I saw my first true crush: the Holy Grail of swing sets. It was big, shiny and had a spectacularly amazing looking slide. This is the kind of thing that can stir up incomprehensible longing in a young girl. I must have told my parents that we should join that church at least 10 times a week. After what seemed like years of yearning the bible school finally gave me my chance to swing to my heart's content, teeter-totter like an Olympian and scorch my baby thighs on the slick metal of that glorious, glorious slide heated to a perfect 200 degrees in the July sun. The church service itself seemed pretty familiar: I had to sit still, be quiet and listen to some old guy talk endlessly about stuff I didn't understand. The upside was they gave me my very own miniature bible (which I couldn't read but didn't have to share with my brother and sister -- even though I'm sure Jesus would've appreciated it) and introduced me to one of the greatest culinary delights known to man: the cupcake in an ice cream cone. This little confection took the two most incredible known kid foods and made them into one harmonious child-size delight covered in gobs and gobs of icing. I was in heaven -- however, I must have liked the Lutheran vacation bible school a little too much because for some unknown reason I was taken out halfway through the week never to go back again.

More recently I attended a Lutheran service for passing of a dear friend's father and found myself thinking many of the same things: It was a lot like the Catholic church (they even do the Apostle's creed!) except there was more singing, less standing up and sitting down and once again the superb snacks. I ate something that can only be described as chocolate, marshmallow ecstasy as well as about 20 different types of miniature sandwiches.

Oh, and as life would have it, I now pass the old Lutheran church of my youth on my daily commute to the cube farm and that old longing creeps back up. Over the years they've upgraded to a FULL PLAYGROUND. It looks so awesome that most days I am tempted to call in sick and swing all day long.

Jews are Catholic because Jesus was Jewish, right?

In the first grade my best friend, Bristol, was the coolest person I'd ever met. She was smart, fashionable, sassy, and always smelled really, really good. She was also Jewish and this was totally awesome in my six-year-old mind because Jesus was Jewish and most of the songs I knew at the time were either about Jesus or jump roping. Needless to say, I wanted to be just like Bristol. I didn't understand why my family didn't own a menorah (probably because I was a mini-pyromaniac, but that's another post) and I wanted to go to Hebrew school rather than catechism. I even went so far as to select the one and only RIF book specifically laid out for the two Jewish kids in school (Bristol and her brother) at one of the bi-yearly book giveaways. It was a bright shiny Hanukkah activity book and had stickers and wicked cool pictures of colorful soldiers. I actually remember Bristol being seriously peeved at me for choosing it because for whatever reason I was allowed first pick of books that day and she really wanted it -- but I didn't care it was the coolest book in the world and it was MINE. I think that book lasted about 1 week in our house until it some how disappeared in the way things that parents don't exactly approve of do.

The hardest thing for me understand at that time was why I couldn't be both Catholic and Jewish. Maybe it's because a lot of the stories used to teach young children about the Bible are from the Old Testament. Think about it: Noah's Ark = practically every nursery's decor in America. I seriously felt like they were one in the same and didn't understand why the adults had to constantly point out that they were different. We were different: Bristol was one and I was the other. The older I get the more I understand that these kinds of definitions have caused 90% of the wars in the world. Stupid adults.

The Rapture is not the same as a raptor, but almost.

In high school, still believing that essentially everyone believed in same thing that I did, I started to get involved with the Born Again Christian movement that was growing mighty popular at that time. The Left Behind series could be found at any local Wal-Mart end cap, Mega-Churches were the new Club 54 and anyone who was anyone had a deluxe personalized bible cover. I know it's hard to believe, but in high school I was determined to do exactly what everyone else was doing, so I tagged along with my to the charismatic services and pizza buffet Bible studies with glee.

The thing about these kids is that the kept talking about THE RAPTURE (which I'm pretty sure always appears in all caps). I had no idea what the fuck they were talking about. Let's be clear here, the Catholics have more books in their Bible, not less, so we definitely have the Book of Revelations. We just don't take it that seriously. I once asked a priest about it and he said something like "Eh, we kinda take the Book of Revelations with a grain of salt -- it was written long after the other books of the Bible and we don't know if those guys really knew what they were talking about. But it's a good story."

It scared the shit out of me. Of course I never actually took the intuitive to read it, but my friends were more than happy give my all the gritty details. There were horsemen and Prophets and some kind of global speaker system. You were guaranteed to either to get vaporized or your have head chopped off. And most of all JESUS HATED CATHOLICS. Believing in Mary or Saint Anthony was pretty much the Mark of the Beast itself -- I was destined for hell.

Still, even though many of my Catholic friends were more than happy to give up Communion wafers for Vanilla Wafers, I was not so sure. Instead I created some kind of religious hybrid -- I was determined to reconcile both religions within myself and cover all my bases. I threw my hands up and sang Christian Rock and went home and prayed the Rosary. I went to two youth groups a week and spent copious amounts of time defending each side to the other. I was intensely religious and I probably freaked a lot of people out. I wore a gold necklace that said "Worth Waiting For" and I once spent 45 minutes in drama class explaining how the greatest wedding gift I could give to my husband was my virginity (ha ha).

And Now? Where will I spend eternity?

Eventually just became too much or maybe I just went to college, but either way I pretty much gave up on all of it. I stopped listening to everyone and just listened to myself. I haven't been excommunicated but I guess I'm still technically a Catholic. I can't believe in a God who sends people to hell based simply on semantics and I don't understand why you'd ever start a war over God because I think that would seriously annoy him. I call God him because there isn't a respectful genderless pronoun but I don't think he really cares. I guess I'm just like every other cliche 20-something bleeding heart out there and I really don't know if you go anywhere after you die but I think you shouldn't live your life any less because you're afraid of the answer. I'm just trying be a good person and that should get me points with someone, somewhere. :) OH MAN, I couldn't resist ending this with an emoticon!

Why Would Anyone Ever Want 50 Chicken McNuggets?

2008-10-28T21:55:00.016-06:00

Picture this: Mike and I are driving slow on a Sunday morning (probably jamming to Maroon 5) in my sweet little vintage automobile when when we see it:

NFL SPECIAL

50 CHICKEN McNUGGETS

$9.99

"WHAT?!" Mike says, as he grinds the car to a screeching halt about 2 micrometers from the Golden Arched marquee "50 McNuggets for 10 bucks! That's incredible!"

"It's not that big of a deal," I say, pulling my nails out of the upholstery, "We used to get that all the time when I was a kid, you know how my mom thinks 50 is one of God's numbers."

"You've heard of this before?!"

Of course I had heard of it. I grew up in Los Lunas where everything, especially fast food, is purchased in bulk in case there is ever a famine/depression/impromptu family reunion.

"Why haven't you ever told me about this? Think of all you can do with 50 Chicken McNuggets!"

Mike hadn't heard of the 'NFL SPECIAL' because he grew up in Los Alamos, which I'm pretty sure is the only place on earth where they opened a McDonald's and shut it down a year later because nobody in the whole damn town had developed a taste for the Big Mac.

"Mike, the only thing you can do with 50 Chicken McNuggets is eat some, feel guilty and fat, eat some more to make yourself feel better and before you know it you can't fit into a wedding dress and you can't stop crying."

"But the sauces, Jamie! Think of the sauces. You could try every single sauce McDonald's has to offer. We have to do this."

Mike gets to wear a tux.

"No, Mike we don't. It's nine in the morning and there are only two of us, we are not getting 50 chicken McNuggets. Plus I don't like condiments, you know that."

So that's that right? Life is happy and Mike listens to me like he always does. No obscene amount of McNuggets for breakfast.

Sadly, as the day wore on there was obscene amount of McNugget talk. Mike couldn't get the idea out of his head and after a full day of listening to nugget chatter I finally gave in Mike and I headed to towards that same fated marquee which had so piqued his interest 8 hours earlier and we picked up 50 Chicken McNuggets for dinner.

The first thing we learned is that 50 chicken McNuggets is a hell of a lot of food. It took 2 big bags to hold all of our McNuggets, I instantly knew that we had over done it:

Mustache bag guy is pretty creepy

Also, as you may notice, Mike got way too excited at the drive-through and when the asked him what sauce he wanted all he could think of was sweet and sour, so we ended up with 11 of them. In an attempt to redeem himself, Mike found some other sauces:

Man, we're classy folk

In their defense, those little McNuggets did look pretty good.. all warm and golden and nuggety:

Worth their weight in gold

So we got to work eating the McNuggets and Mike pretty much lost himself in some kind of fried chicken/condiment frenzy and in an attempt to prove that we hadn't purchased 7 pounds of chicken-like food product in vain he wolfed down more nuggets than is considered safe by the Surgeon General:

I can't believe I'm marrying this guy.

I indulged a bit too, wedding dress be dammed:

How Sarah Palin eats a McNugget

After about 20 minutes my jeans felt like they were ripping at the seams, my body image had plummeted far into the depths of a sweet and sour tub and we still had a ridiculous amount of nuggets left, so we did the only thing feasible with them... puppy treats!!

I can has a McNugget?

I don't recommend feeding your dog Chicken McNuggets as they pretty much turned Butters into some kind of demon dog:

Nom!

We soon learned that unless you're a family of 5 or you live in a frat, buying 50 chicken McNuggets at a time is probably not the best idea. Aside from the, you know ramifications that kind of marketing scheme on the health of the American public. However, in the end, every single last one of those damn nuggets were consumed, here's the final tally:

Jamie: 12

Mike: 22 (um, gross.)

Herman: 8

Butters: 8

Wedding dress: 0

The wreckage. And we washed it all down with Coke Zero.

Here Comes Another Bride

2008-06-10T22:30:00.003-06:00

So, if you haven't heard, as of April 18, I am officially a wife-to-be. It appears that after 3 and a half years putting up with all the theatrics that are Jamie Armer, Mike has decided he can do it for a lifetime. We're all hoping that a new last name will curb some of the neuroses. We're giving ourselves a year to get together some kind of nuptial shindig in which there will generous libations and all the other happenings that occur when two lovebirds such as ourselves get hitched . That said, I've spent the last month getting schooled in all that is old, new, borrowed and blue and here are some of the more important things I've learned:

It's not cool to announce your engagement on Myspace/Facebook

Apparently it really ticks people off to find out such big news through their favorite social networking site. In my defense, I called everyone who I thought should be called (i.e. anyone whose phone number was stored in my cell phone) within about 14 nano seconds of him putting the ring on my finger and the two of us spent our entire first betrothed weekend on the phone chatting it up with friends and relatives around the country. So the mass e-nouncement probably wasn't the best idea, but I was excited and I wanted to get the news out as quickly as possible. A huge chunk of my life is dedicated to getting The News out as quickly as possible and it's a hard habit to shake. I still feel pretty bad about hurting peoples' feelings and all so if you would like me to call you so we can discuss my engagement please send me your phone number and I will do so.

Everyone expects you to have some kind of complicated engagement story

It's the same deal as when I graduated college and everyone asked me what I was going to do with the rest of my life -- they never seem satisfied with my answer. Ours was cute and simple. He took me to the Sandia Crest. He got down on one knee. I said yes and called him a punkass. It was cold so we went home. People always seem so disappointed when I tell them this story that it makes me feel like I should start embellishing a bit. Next time someone asks me how he proposed I'm going to say "Well, for some reason I was standing all alone on Sandia Crest in a beautiful evening gown, when all of the sudden Mike drops out of the sky via a white satin parachute and when he hits the ground a 20 piece brass band comes out of nowhere and starts playing our favorite song, then he gets down on one knee and I look up and notice we're on the jumbotron, and I start to cry and say 'Yes! Yes! Of course!' and the whole crowd erupts in applause and then the Pope comes out and tells us congratulations." Maybe that will keep them satisfied.

You will be judged on your engagement ring even more than your shoes

Mike and I discussed getting engaged long before it actually happened and I made it very clear to him that I did not want a typical engagement ring -- particularly, I did not want a diamond. I really really wanted some type of blue stone and spent a lot of time daydreaming while googling aquamarine and topaz but I could never really find anything online that I absolutely loved. Mike, being the geologist, opted to go with a sapphire because of some complicated geological reason that I don't understand, perhaps because it has good cleavage, and picked out one of the most beautiful stones I have ever seen and had it set in a elegant swirl setting. It is the perfect. I have, however, had a mixed reaction from the public. I've had a few people give me sad eyes and say "Well, you can get a diamond later on in life," as if my sapphire is some kind of placeholder for compressed carbon. Trust me, we didn't go cheap with my ring -- we went with what I wanted -- which is worth more than anything else anyway. I've also been given a few "Well.. that's unique. I wouldn't have gone with it myself, but..." Well, that's why I'm engaged and you're not, bitch. And of course there's the "It's uh, 'pretty'" FUCK OFF. It's my ring and it makes me so happy I want to burst into a billion little bits of sapphire joy which will severely irritate the contact lenses of the cynics of the world, thus making them cry tears of joy, sapphire joy.

The point is, everyone has an opinion, and when it comes to getting married, everyone has two, but unless they're going to somehow get tied in that knot with you, the only that matters is what a makes the Mr. and the Mrs. (THAT'S GOING TO BE ME!! YAY!) happy. We've got a lifetime of not doing what everyone expects us to do ahead of us and it's way too early in the game to let it start getting us down.

Just Google It

2008-04-09T20:40:00.005-06:00

This is what was going through my head on the way home tonight: I wonder what the difference between hypochondria and mitochondria is, because you know, they both sound the same. I mean know that I hypochondria is when you think you're sick all the time and mitochondria are like bacteria or something like that, but I wonder why they both end in chondria? How could the two words possibly be related? Why do they have the same suffix? What the hell does chondria mean? I wish I would have taken Greek in college. Or maybe Latin. Chondria sounds more Latin right? I took Spanish, what in Spanish sounds like chondria? Man, I wish I would have paid more attention in Spanish class. Remember how hot that 2nd year Spanish TA was? I think he played soccer. Soccer players are hot -- that's why I have no idea what in Spanish sounds like chondria -- man I guess I'll just look it up when I get home. Me gusta jugadores de futbol. Muchachos guapos.

And Google it I did. The first thing I learned was that I should have also paid more attention in biology class, as mitochondria are the parts of a cell that give it energy. My friend in med school is probably ripping out her hair right now. That's trichotillomania by the way. Also, I learned from this nifty website that chondria is Greek and it means cartilage. So if hypo means below, one who is a hypochondriac is concerned with what is below the (rib) cartilage. So that sort of makes sense. So what about mito? It means thread. So thread cartilage? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Ok we're going to have to back up. Because mitochondria is actually plural for mitochondrion so our root is actually chondrion, which means granule. Now we've got something like thready granule, and if you look at an image of a mitochondrion it starts to make sense.

Ok so enough with the etymology lesson (and the italics!) My point is that through the magic of internet search engines it has become incredibly easy for us to find out about anything at anytime. Our strangest curiosities are instantly quenched at the click of the mouse. At any given time of the day I can find out the calorie content in a Carl's Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger (A LOT) or diagnose myself with a rare and incurable disorder that usually only affects chickens in Nigeria.

At heart I am a true lover of books and libraries but I have to admit that the internet has its merits. It seems like I've spent days on end at Snopes.com and Mentalfloss.com I just wonder if this plethora of instant knowledge makes us any smarter. It kinda feels like easy come easy go.

Is knowledge more valuable if it's earned? I mean if you spend all day rolling out pasta dough and squashing tomatoes and then cooking a lasagna in a wood fired oven with logs you gathered from the forest (barefoot) and then ate it you would be full right? But if you put 2 HotPockets in the microwave for a minute thirty and then ate them you'd also be full. Same result right? If you're full, you're full. But are you satisfied? I guess it depends on how good of a cook you are.

Feels like all I have time for right now is HotPockets.

Fatty Fatty Fat Fat

2008-03-02T21:48:00.005-07:00

Last Friday night the boy and I found ourselves at our friendly neighborhood Target seeking some much needed essentials. Four years ago I would have been mortified to find myself at Target on a Friday night because I would have been convinced that the rest of the world would be out having a way better night than I was and thus making much better use of their time on earth and deeming me a complete waste of space. However, on this particular Friday night I was feeling pretty good because I was with my man and I was looking pretty darn cute -- I had on a new outfit and my hair was behaving -- I couldn't have been happier. That is until we encountered on particularly horrible child: a five year old little blonde girl who was left to play in the isles while her inattentive mother sorted through oversized tee-shirts and high waisted khakis in the women's department. When I walked past this particular child she pointed at me and said rather loudly "She's fat!" My jaw dropped and I looked to my boyfriend to make sure I wasn't hearing things. The little girl's mother paid no attention to her demon child and stayed contemplating life's most pressing question: pleats or no pleats? Unsatisfied with her mother's response the little girl tried again, this time more loudly with an even grander gesture, she once again pointed at me and shouted "SHE'S FAT!" This time her mother -- who wasn't particularly slim herself -- looked up briefly at me and shushed her child and then continued on with her chest-high khaki quest. A few other shoppers gave the child mortified looks and then looked to see if I was indeed fat -- the mother however made no attempt to rectify her child's actions.

In reaction to being branded a Target Heifer(R), I ran and hid in the shoe department and sobbed while my poor boyfriend -- doubly out of his realm in the midst shoes and a shattered self image -- tried his best to console me. When I finally came out of hiding mascara streaked and and runny nosed I wandered the isles scrutinizing every other woman in the store just to make sure I wasn't the fattest person there. In a final, desperate attempt to make me feel better, my boyfriend insisted on stopping at Starbucks on the way out and I almost broke down again when I ordered a Skinny Latte and I couldn't help but wonder if the clerk was laughing on the inside.

On the way home from the store I began to play the scene over and over again in my head, except each time I had some time of witty remark to shoot back at the child and her mother:

"Yeah, well you're ugly."

"Oh honey, when you're 25 you and your boyfriend will both be wishing you had boobs like these and and ass like mine."

"You are the reason they invented birth control."

Finally though, I just felt silly for getting so upset over the whole ordeal. Why? Because I'm not fat and I love my body -- and it's really stupid to take anything a 5 year old says seriously. I understand that the word "curvy" has, as of late, been grossly overused as a polite synonym for "overweight," but I am not afraid to admit that I am curvy in the truest sense of the word -- I embrace the fact that I am very nicely proportioned . I AM NOT FAT. No, I am not as thin as I would like to be and that is why I spend a few nights a week at the gym and try my best to eat healthy so that I can shave off a few pounds -- I know that it is imperative to my quality of life to be at a healthy weight -- but I understand that I am never going to weigh less than 140 pounds (my goal weight, which is right within my BMI) and I'm fine with the fact that I the last thing I will ever look like is a 12 year old boy. I know that I've been blessed with some very valuable "assets" and if I needed any more proof as to how good I look I know that my boyfriend cannot keep his hands off me.

Mostly though, my heart aches for that little girl. I feel so bad for her that at such a young age she has already been taught to pick women apart based on hyper-unrealistic expectations. That she hasn't even moved out of a size 6x and she's already been so bombarded with the airbrushed manipulations of the human body put out by our media that she believes all women should fit into clothes only a few sizes larger than her own. So much so that she sees an average woman such as myself and feels the need to brand me fat. What in the world is her mother so preoccupied with that she cannot take the time to instill in her child a healthy body image?

I understand that America is in the midst of an obesity epidemic and I wouldn't encourage anyone to remain unhealthy but it goes both ways. We should be striving for healthy bodies and not some manipulated ideal of beauty that does not exist in the real world.

REAL WOMEN SHOP AT TARGET.

On an end note: When I have children if one my girls EVER said anything like that I would spank her, make her apologize and burn all her Barbies. But that's just me.

10 Things my Dog Has Eaten (and Somehow Survived)

2008-02-18T21:01:00.009-07:00

This is my dog, Herman.

Herman seems to be a mix of lab/golden retriever/chow/terrier/coyote. We'll just call her "cute." Herman is a girl. Herman is not a goat. Herman has a stomach of steel. Here are some interesting things Herman has eaten in her three years of life:

1. When Herman was a puppy and was still being housebroken she had a few accidents in the house. One day as I was cleaning up one of these accidents I noticed that it caught the light in an interesting way. As I leaned closer I saw that it actually sparkled. It was like a little disco ball of puppy poo. Upon further investigation I discovered that Herman had eaten an entire tube of red glitter. This is how Herman got the nickname "Glitter Shitter."

2. Like many young women, there was a point when Herman developed a taste for sexy undies. I would come home from work to find everything but the elastic band eaten on my panties or just one cup remaining of a bra. It didn't matter if they were cotton or lace, push-up or underwire -- Herman would eat them all. Eventually I had to stop shopping at Victoria's Secret and find my unmentionables at more frugal locations -- undies are expensive dog treats! Ask my boyfriend if he still loved Herman after that one.

3. When it got to be winter I deemed it way too cold to leave Herman outside all day and would let her stay in the house while I was at work. One day I came home from the work to find that a 2ft section of the carpet had completely vanished from the middle of the living room -- and Herman in the corner with her tail between her legs. Turns out Kibbles and Bits were just too ordinary for Herman and she decided to chow down on the flooring. This his how Herman got the nickname "Carpet Muncher."

4. As a young college student in a kickass rental house I deemed it my duty to have the Halloween party of the century. It was wild and I kept Herman in my room all night for her safety. The next morning I let her out to use the bathroom and she came back with her entire snout dyed magenta. Apparently one of our responsible guests had left a half full cup of "Jungle Juice" (Everclear, Vodka, Sangria, Fruit and Kool Aid) outside and Herman took it upon herself to finish it off. She then spent the rest of the day wining and hiding behind the couch -- seems we were both a bit hungover.

5. One night I decided I would take it easy and watch a little TV and eat some pizza. I ordered a large pizza from Papa Johns figuring I would save some for later or share it with my roommates. I opened the box and went into the kitchen to grab a soda. When I came back the ENTIRE pizza was completely gone. Herman was only weighed about 15 pounds at this time but somehow she managed to pull off something I had previously only thought was feasible by frat guys and the morbidly obese.

6. One day I came home from work to find that some how my little pooch had dyed her snout a deep blue. I was completely baffled by this and tried to find any blue foods in the house she could have gotten a hold of -- nothing. It was only when I found a half empty bag of Miracle Grow with dog teeth marks in it that I figured it out. Of course being almost poisoned to death Herman was in the best of spirits and showed no signs of eating the fertilizer -- and no she didn't get any bigger either.

7. Probably the most important tip ever given to new dog owners is to not give dogs chocolate as it can prove lethal to our four pawed friends. Needless to say I panicked when I discovered that Herman had eaten an entire bag of Reeses Peanut butter Cups. Since she seemed fine I didn't take her to the vet but I kept a close eye on her for the next few days -- then I started seeing the telltale orange wrappers all over the backyard and I knew she was going to be ok. Then about a week later Herman climbed up on the counter and ate an entire bag of Hershey's Kisses -- this time I had no sympathy.

8. Because prescription drugs are so expensive I found that it is much more cost effective to order them through a company that will supply you with a three months supply at a dramatically discounted rate. I had just gotten three months worth of birth control when I came home to find all three plastic cases chewed beyond recognition and not a single pill to spare --I guess Herman was planning a wild night out. I called poison control and they assured me she would be just fine -- my boyfriend and I would just have to be extra careful for the next three months (well it's not like I had any sexy underwear to turn him on. anyway)

9. Herman went to visit my boyfriend's family a few days ago and they had to leave her in the house while they ran some errands. When they got home they found that Herman had eaten about half of a bird's nest that my boyfriend's mom had saved from the spring before. I guess she got halfway through and decided twigs and mud weren't that tasty after all.

10. My parents are building a new house and my boyfriend and I have been going down there to help with whatever we can on the weekends. Last weekend we took Herman with us and we discovered she has quite a craving for gypsum -- we had to continually stop Herman from eating the drywall scraps lying around the construction site -- she didn't seem to bothered by it -- I could tell she was just thinking "All in all it's just another taste of the wall."

I don't know why my dog eats weird stuff. I promise I feed her -- a lot. These are just the things I know about that she's eaten -- I can't imagine what she's consumed when I'm not looking. All I know is that she's the best looking 50lb garbage disposal I've ever seen.

Go Sit On Your Tiara!

2008-01-28T21:44:00.001-07:00

I'm going to put it out there: I've been mildly obsessed with Miss America since I was about 5 months old. When I was a kid -- and we only had network TV -- my entire family used to gather 'round the 'set every year to watch America's best young women duke it out for the world's most coveted rhinestones. Even my brother and my dad -- the testosteronies of the family -- couldn't resist the 120 minutes of sequins and Aqua Net. It would start with the opening number, we'd all be on high alert to catch Miss New Mexico in her 7 and half second spot touting her her home state as The Land of Enchantment. We'd then try to convince ourselves that this year she had it in her to win and spend the next 10 minutes trying to spot her in a flurry sashes and upbeat music -- this always proved difficult, because, well, they always put Miss New Mexico in the back. We were then given a break from all that pizazz with an eternal 4 minutes of well placed advertisements for suntan lotion and lipstick until we were swept back into the magic and immediately ushered into the elimination of all but 16 contestants. Trust me, I'd hold out until the last semifinalist called for the 47th state -- of course I was momentarily devastated when we weren't called but I soon busied myself with trying to predict who was going to win: Texas, California, Hawaii, New York, Tennessee, Alabama -- the show would go on and eventually one of these states would win. Although I was always a little disappointed that our own little estrella didn't win, I would go to bed happy and dream of red roses and high heels.

I loved the pageant so much that I even decided that I might look good in a tiara and tried my hand at a few pageants of my own -- these were horrible failures. Although I was a darn cute kid, I was not incredibly poised. At one rehearsal I fell off the runway, at another I packed socks that were too big for me and so bulky that I couldn't pull my cowgirl boots over them during a costume change -- I went out on the runway in with just the droopy, floppy socks and had to drag my feet just to keep them on (why I didn't go sans socks just wear the boots is beyond me). There is much documentation of me standing in a row of primly made-up little girls all smiling daintily at the camera and I'm swaying back and forth in a daydream or picking at my tights. When I started getting becoming a little chunker it was time to give up on the pageants for good. However, I was still entranced by Miss America, and even as a Woodstock loving - homemade peace sign necklace wearing - would've burned my bra if my mom would've let me -8th grader I still made time for the pageant. In high school my interest in the pageant began to dwindle and my awareness of the rest of the world increased and eventually I pretty much forgot all about the pageant.

In college I almost had a revival of pageant fever when Marta Strzyzweski, a Polish beauty from Los Alamos was selected as Miss New Mexico in 2001. I found her incredibly admirable -- as did many others in our state (she worked at the Labs and played classical piano for Christ's sake!) -- and we all held out hope that Marta would be our ticket to finally winning Miss America. Of course the night of the pageant came and Marta followed the path of so many Miss New Mexicos before her -- in the back row only to be eliminated after the first commercial break. It was then that I completely lost interest in the pageant. It became evident that the same blonde opera singers and baton twirlers competed every year and unless you were from the one 12 select states that always won, there was nobody to truly root for.

In all my pageant watching years, Miss New Mexico has never been Miss America. Note in 1984 (when I was 2 by the way) Mia Shanley from from Alamogordo won Miss USA, so maybe that sort of counts. For those of you who are not pageant savvy, Miss USA is the Donald Trump owned beauty pageant whereas Miss America is a scholarship program. As a point of reference, Shanely's biggest accomplishment during her reign as Miss USA was to bring the pageant industry to Taiwan, whereas Miss America is teamed with The Children's Miracle Network.

Apparently the rest of America started to become just as disenchanted with the pageant as I had become. Eventually it was deemed too lame for primetime network television and found its way over the Country Music Television channel -- where I wasn't even aware that the pageant was still being televised. Eventually even CMT had to give up on Miss America (what does it say when you're not even relevant to CMT viewers?) and this year TLC (The LEARNING Channel, mind you) picked up on the pageant.

This is where I started to become interested in the pageant again. One, because if it's on TLC then it has to be educational, right? And, two, because TLC started airing a program entitled Miss America Reality Check on Friday nights that aimed to reinvent Miss America and bring it out of the dark ages of hoop skirts and and foot-long earrings and make it relevant to a modern audience. I was hooked from episode one, and I forced my boyfriend to watch every last darn episode with me the month before the pageant. I really believed that TLC was going to do something miraculous with the pageant. They challenged the contestants to wear more modern and elegant clothing and to address questions with personality and originality -- unlike their Stepfordy contemporaries of the past.

Mostly, though, they highlighted many of the contestants that normally would have been otherwise lost in the crowd. I totally became enchanted with the oftentimes "out there" Miss Alaska, and I thought Miss Washington was spunky and entertaining. My boyfriend had a thing for Miss Wisconsin (because "all girls from Wisconsin are hot.") Of course, I was delighted to see our very own Miss New Mexico, Jenny Marlowe, get some airtime. She was spontaneous and clever and completely captured me and my boyfriend's hearts. I watched her chop off all her hair and wow the audience with a black hat on the red carpet. I was more than delighted when I googled Marlowe and made the connection that I had seen her on stage in the UNM Theater production of Urinetown. Although I felt like Urinetown itself was a horrible production probably written by guys who never get laid or change their socks (think a live production of a D level Southpark) and that the next time UNM puts on a musical they should probabally cast people who know how to sing, Marlowe left quite an impression on me. She and the guy who played dad to her character completely stole the show and were its only saving grace. When Marlowe won the final award on Reality Check for being exemplary of the changed that needed take place in Miss America, I was ecstatic. I thought we were in. This was going to be our year!!! At least we'd make it to the top 16.

The night of the pageant I invited some friends over for a grand viewing (and some grand cocktails) and we sat in front of the high-def in high-def anticipation. I was excited to see the New Miss America pageant and was confident it would be fresh and entertaining. When Jenny came on during the opening number and told us to "Get your kicks on Route 66," I squealed with glee. However, things took a turn for the worse after that fateful first commercial break. Spunky Miss New Mexico was eliminated along with just about everyone else I thought was worthy of the title. In fact the top 16 seemed to consist of the usual suspects. Usual big hair. Usual lacquered on makeup. Usual horrific dresses. I was completely disappointed. Not just for Miss New Mexico, but for everyone else that wasn't from Texas or California.

Horribly, they made all the losers sit on the stage and be present for the rest of the pageant -- offering them a plate of cookies and saying "here, eat some carbs."

For the swimsuit competition (thinly veiled as a component to show health and fitness) was totally sexed up this year, with cleavage bouncing all over the stage. Ok, so it may have been a bit bolder, but ahem, it is a swimsuit competition, so I don't know how much farther they would've taken it. What's next year going to bring? Thongs? Complete nudity?

The new an improved question and answer was completely disgusting. Instead of the contestants commenting on relevant world events, (say I don't know, the war in Iraq?) it became a giant Lindsay Lohan/Jamie Lynne Spears bash fest. US Weekly in evening wear. Yes, that empowers women, give them a tiara for talking shit about each other.

Eventually the crown was placed upon another head of pouffy blonde hair.

TLC taught me that even on reality TV, Miss America simply cannot be made over. Even when they sexed it up and dumbed it down it equated to nothing more than a parade of skinny blondes and badly sung opera. It's not even that Miss New Mexico didn't win -- it's that she didn't have a chance against her competitors -- who I'm sure all came out of the womb wearing a sash and vaseline on their gums. It's that first and foremost, pageantry is an industry and I forgot that. It's that I was given a glimmer of hope that my childhood fascination could be revived and I was gravely disappointed. Nothing changed, there she is, Miss America.

Love Means Never Having to Change Your Number

2007-12-18T19:04:00.000-07:00

In honor of the rapidly approaching 9th anniversary of my use mobile telecommunications I would like to look back upon one of the longest standing relationships I've ever had, my Cellphone Affair:

Part 1: The Honeymoon Period

My sleek little portable communications device came into my life neatly wrapped in happy smiling Santas and tucked under 1998's Christmas tree. Almost a decade later it is now the norm to give a child a cell phone upon the commencement of pre-school, but back then (in the 90's -- ohmygod) it was a bit of a luxury in my small town for a 16 year old to have her own personal cellphone. My family is not particularly wealthy -- my mom is just amazingly paranoid -- and I had gotten my driver's licence three weeks earlier and totaled my first car two weeks after that, and my mom needed a way to keep track of her oldest daughter. Being in the cellphone owning minority, I thought I'd owned some type of Nokia gold and hoped my cellphone ownership would qualify me as some type of high school royalty. I was super proud my phone and showed it off whenever I could. I spent many a contemplative hour mall at kiosks picking out plastic faceplates so that I could change the color of my phone as often as I changed my adolescent mood. However, being the misunderstood-unapproachable-bitchy teenager that I was I had nobody to talk to on my VoiceStream direct line to the world and my phone was primarily used for playing Snake.

Part 2: The Dorm Days

Ah yes, college -- the Great American great awakening. In good ole' Hokona Hall I found myself with a brand new group of friends and felt as if I'd finally encountered the intellectual equals I'd been searching for for the last 19 years. The first years of college were all about proving to everyone just how much I didn't care about anything that didn't matter and how much I cared about everything that did matter. I wore torn jeans and stopped blow drying my hair -- big statement I know. The dorms brought a new hip ultra modern way to communicate via highspeed Internet -- the LAN line -- and my shiny HP Pavilion graduation gift game equipped with the most advanced of computer features at the time -- an Ethernet port. This meant that my primary means of communication were AIM and Hotmail (ROFL). If I wanted to talk directly to someone I'd just walk across the hall and knock on the door or if I was super lonely I'd make my way down to LaPo, the dinning hall, and mull around until I was invited to join a large table of fellow dormies. There was no need for a cellphone -- I completely forgot to charge the battery on my phone for weeks at a time and I think it spent at least one entire semester underneath my extra long twin bed. When I finally did get around to checking my voicemails they were all the same -- my mom demanding to know where I was and why I wasn't answering my phone.

Part 3: I'm Like, So Sophisticated

Midway through college I'd decided that I'd outgrown the dorms and that I was mature enough to move into an apartment. Two other girls and I moved into an ultra chic flat in the ultra chic Northeast Heights lived I lived ultra chicly off of my Old Navy salary. We'd throw sophisticated dinner parties and stay up all night discussing politics and watching pseudo intellectual documentaries. Since I could barely afford the rent at this place and we didn't have a land line my new favorite way to communicate with the outside world became the one my parents still paid for -- my cellphone. This was the point when it became important for me to at least have my phone charged most of the time. I still till never answered the thing but at least I gave those who would call me the satisfaction of a few rings before sending them to my voicemail. Only two people ever called me anyway, my mom and Crazy Freestyle Techno Guy (CFTG for short.) CFTG was a prank caller who for a few weeks would call me at exactly 12:07 am from a blocked number and insist, in a bad French accent, that he was in love with me and wanted to take me out to the Tram -- but could I drive? He didn't have a car. This was obviously a prank that played to the great amusement of whoever those young, and I'm sure beer drinking guys were. The most impressive thing about Crazy Freestyle Techno Guy though was his ability to, well, crazy freestyle techno, which is like freestyle rap, but, you know, techno. To this day I still cannot express how fascinating this was and I hope to one day track down CFTG and exploit him for his talents. Aside from providing the pre-Ashton punkers a way to keep me up all night, my phone was also particularly useful for tearfully calling my dad when I'd realized it was impossible to live off $7.00 an hour and go to school full time -- amounting a living expense of about $350 dollars a month -- and to ask for a little money "just to get by." SHAME.

Part 4: Boys Boys Boys

My chicness in the previous section meant I had begun to comb my hair again and wear clean clothes. Eventually though, I gained something far more valuable than personal hygiene -- social skills. Although I'd always been comfortable and talkative in own my circle of friends I would literally freeze when when I'd have to step outside the boundaries of Jamie approved people -- I've always been an incredibly shy person, which many times got mistaken as snobby. Somehow, for some reason, my little shell of terror began to melt (we'll call this miracle "vodka") and I started learning how to talk to other people and by other people I mean boys and by talk I mean flirt. By this time everyone in the world had a cellphone and I furiously engaged myself in the sacred courting ritual of "getting digits." I kept my phone fully charged at all times and would wait for hours on end for it to ring. When it finally did ring I wouldn't answer because I didn't want to seem desperate. This became a particularly abusive point in my cellphone relationship. If I'd waited a particularly long time for a phone call that never came or if I'd gotten a text message canceling a date I'd hurl my phone into the wall. There was something particularly satisfying about the explosion of faceplate, battery, and keypad on renters white. I'd then reassemble the phone, text a nasty response to the offending party which would usually be replied to in an even nastier response and launch the phone right back into the wall.

Part 5: Love, Love, Love

Eventually all those boys turned into just one boy -- the ONE boy and I fell head-over-heels.

The cellphone became the ultimate boyfriend tracking device. I'd call my boyfriend when I'd wake up, when I got out of class, when I got home from work or when I was going to bed just to say "what's up." If he didn't answer I'd panic imagining the worse -- I was sure he was somewhere bleeding to death uttering his last words of eternal commitment to me. Of course when he'd call back, I'd have been staring at the phone willing it to ring for hours and instead being relived that he was alive I'd be pissed off that he hadn't called me and totally lay into him. What did he mean he was in the library and couldn't answer the phone!? That was no excuse. I WAS WORRIED DAMN IT! Of course when he called and I didn't answer that was perfectly alright. What was I supposed to just sit around all day waiting to answer his call. I didn't think so.

Part 6: OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO BE LOCKED IN COSTCO FOREVER

So this brings us to present day. It's Saturday afternoon and I've made the mistake of going to Costco with my parents and my sister. Somehow I'd left my cellphone at home but I didn't mind too much, I mean I was going to be with my mom and she's the only one who calls me anyway. I momentarily strayed from my family to taste a delectable sample of Italian Creme cake and when I'd turned back around they'd completely vanished. I was ALONE in COSTCO without my cellphone. I wondered aimlessly for about 45 minutes and then I began to panic. I WAS NEVER GOING TO FIND MY FAMILY. How in the world would I find them if I couldn't call them on my cellphone? It could be days, even weeks! I began to work out a survival plan which involved living off of Bagel Bites samples and drinking fountain water when my mom appeared in the distance. I was saved! When I finally got to her she was relived -- she didn't know how she would ever find me if I didn't have my phone on me. I've experienced similar situations when I'm driving on the freeway and I've realized I've forgotten my phone -- what if I get stranded? Or maybe I'm at Wal-Mart and I lose my last bar of service -- what I'm I going to do if I forget what brand of paper towels my sister told me to pick up? Or worse yet, what if my phone battery dies and on my lunch break and I HAVE NO ONE TO MAKE IDLE CHATTER WITH? I don't know how I ever survived in the past when I didn't have my cellphone with me at all times.

Oh Cellphone, It's been nine tough years but somehow we're still together. It's been rough and I've often ignored you but in my own little way I've remained commited, I haven't changed my number or my service provider. That means something right? Oh Cellphone, oh Cellphone, it's taken me nine years, but oh, how I love thee.