Writer's Workshop: Ex's and Poo

Every week, Mamakat suggests 5 things to write about, and you are supposed to write about one of them. Or all of them, or whatever. She doesn’t really care if you break the rules, she breaks her own rules all the time.

This week, one of the prompts was to list 5 people that you forgot about and felt as though they were due their 5 seconds of fame on your blog, and then expand on one of them. Another prompt was to describe a time you put your foot in your mouth. I am going to weave these two together so intricately, you won’t even notice! OK, so you will, but I can’t help but think about one without thinking about the other.

My five people are all ex’s. I don’t know what started me thinking about my ex’s from my teenage years, but I had recently remembered something which made me hang my head in shame, and then I read Mamakat’s orders, so I started thinking a lot more about that time so, so long ago. Mom…you may want to stop reading now.

1) My first (real) boyfriend. He was my first kiss, and I don’t really remember much else about him, other than a present he gave me for Valentine’s Day that I had to lie to my parents about where it came from; and how when we broke up, I didn’t really care. Sorry Chris!

2) My second boyfriend. We drank together, and consequently we fooled around more than I did with my first boyfriend, and I was crushed when he dumped me for his ex. CRUSHED. It’s not like I thought we were going to get married or anything, but I think it was the humiliation of it all. The funny thing is, I don’t really remember much about him either. Sorry Craig! (Wait…I’m not sorry, you cheated on me!!)

3) The guy I dated the summer before my senior year of high school. Or was it junior year? Oh hell, I don’t remember. We fooled around a bit, and drank together as much as teenagers with limited access to alcohol could. We had a similar group of friends, my friends were dating his friends. Convenient. All I really remember about him was that I loved his sister, he had blond hair and blue eyes (total cutie!!), and I stole a pair of his boxers. But I DO remember this is where my “diarrhea of the mouth” starts. It had to do with his ex-girlfriend who was coming to town for a visit, and if you refer back to #2, you can see why I might have been a bit nervous. It was totally rude and uncalled for and I am still embarrassed. Sorry Chris!

4) The guy I dated before my freshman year in college. We also had a group of friends who inter-dated, and there was much, much more alcohol involved at this point. I don’t remember much about him either, but my diarrhea of the mouth really kicked in on this one. It had to do with his DAD. Yeah, that’s right, I talked shit about his dad. I can’t blame it really on the alcohol, although there may have been a couple of beers in my system at the time. He was a super-nice guy, and I totally wasn’t nice to him. Sorry Jason!

5) This last guy can’t even be counted as an ex. I’m not going to lie, I don’t know his name. Here’s the thing, I NEVER knew his name.

Here is the extent of what I do remember. My friend from high school went to a different college than I did. She met a boy there, and after our freshman year, she wanted to go visit him. He lived in a different town maybe 45 minutes away. (But I can’t even remember which town!) So I agree to go because she is setting me up on a double-date because my current boyfriend was an ass...I wanted to get back at him.

We go to someone’s apartment, drink, and the guy was there. All I can literally remember is that he was tall-ish, with dark hair, and was sort of cute. Definitely not unattractive. Cuter than the ass that I was dating at the time. And we drank and maybe fooled around a bit. And then we went home. And I think maybe we went back once. And I talked to the boy on the phone.

His name was either Brandon or Andrew. And whichever one it was, I called him by the other. I am not kidding, when I called this guy, I asked for him using the wrong name. (Which I am sure was not a turn-off at all.) After a very short period of time, I think he tried to be nice and be like, “Umm…so yeah, I’m not really interested in you.” (shocking!) My friend told me that too, but for whatever reason, I felt compelled to keep trying to talk to this guy.

I can remember sitting on the floor of my parent’s bedroom, on their corded phone, and he’s talking to me, but not really talking, and basically telling me to take a hike, and I kept spewing these nonsense words! Like, if you were listening to the conversation, I sound like an insane stalker. He could not get me off of the phone; I just kept talking like we were dating. The one thing I do remember was he was saying that he had horses or his aunt had horses or something like that in southern Indiana. That was the wrong thing to say to me, because I LOVE horses. I wouldn’t care if he was Jeffrey Dahmer at this point; I just wanted to go horseback riding. I just couldn’t be like, “OK, so it was nice to meet you. Have a nice life.”

I didn’t even know this guy! Like, even a little bit! I couldn't even get his name right! And I really didn’t even CARE to get to know this guy! I think I just didn’t want to be rejected again. The greatest part of the story is that my friend wound up marrying the guy she met freshman year. And all he knows of me is this one incident with Brandon/Andrew. So when I saw them at our 10 year high school reunion, he was all, “Oh yeah, Brandon/Andrew has 2 kids and is married” or something like that. And I just stared blankly at him. Because he called him by the wrong name, and it took me a full 3 seconds to realize who the hell he was even talking about, and THEN my face turned six shades of red. How embarrassing, 9 years later. So I guess I owe my friend and her husband an apology for being completely insane.

Sadly, that is not even my worst case of diarrhea of the mouth. The most memorable times are after I’ve had a lot to drink, because at that point, there is just no sensor. If I think it, I say it. Which can be very, very bad. And even though I really don’t remember much about these guys, (and that is because I didn’t know much about them to begin with), they have the distinct honor of being the first recipients of me. Sticking my foot in my mouth. Thanks MamaKat, for bringing up such fabulous memories. It was fun!

Finally!! A Picture!!!

I took a picture of a computer monitor when one of dad's doctor's came in this afternoon. The image on the left was taken this morning. The sides are flipped, so the left side of the image is actually the right side of his brain, and vice versa. The image on the right was taken when dad first came in a couple of weeks ago. You see that dark grey area on the left of the left side? Yeah...that's all fluid and membrane. That is why he had a "little bit of weakness" on his left side. The lighter gray area on the right half of the left side of the image on the right (got that??) is dad's right side of his brain, all squished up. Poor brain.

Dr. Witt just came in, and dad thanked him for taking care of the membrane and cleaning out the ick. Dad didn't remember threatening him, which made Dr. Witt actually smile at the memory!! (we think he was a very shy child...and probably has an IQ double mine and my sisters put together) (his residents call him Dry Witt) It's a momunmental moment to get Dr. Witt to smile.

So, while dad looks kinda like crap, and feels like hell, he is getting a little bit better every hour. He does loves his hourly pain injection, and me and my sister are watching him like hawks while "working" on our computers. Thank God for technology.

Latest Dad Update

Do you like how I say "dad", instead of "my dad"? It's just how I talk. Weird, I know.

I've talked to my two sisters who are currently in the same city as mi padre. Apparently, he looks like hell. Bandage wrapped all the way around his head this time. But when you have 2 brain surgeries in less than a week, I guess you are supposed to look like hell.

Dr. Witt decided after looking at yesterday's CT scan to make a bigger hole in dad's head and try to get more fluid out and clean things up a bit. The surgery should have taken about 3 hours. Once they got in there, they realized that a membrane had grown. It's like the brain trying to compensate or protect itself or something. He likened it to a tumor removal, since there were blood vessels involved and everything. It was quit thick in some places, up to an inch. Wow!

So Dr. Witt and his team of cronies got all the ick out and I guess drained even more fluid. It wound up taking about 5 1/2 hours. They put in a plate and four screws to help keep the replaced piece of skull in place. My sister said that it's a huge hole, maybe the size of a 3x5 photo!! Dad said that his head hurt. He also told Dr. Witt that he was going to get him back for doing this to him. Good to see that he has a sense of humor. He'll have to lay on his back for 24 hours again, and then they will slowly raise him. From our experience last week, the first 48 hours after surgery are the worst, and then things slowly get better, day by day. He'll have to stay in the hospital for another 3-5 days. Which will be at least a week longer than originally anticipated.

We the family can't thank you enough for all of your love and good thoughts and prayers. I truly believe that they are helping, and I trust that the doctors know what they are doing and what is best for dad. He may feel like shit and be all grumpy, but it wouldn't be right if it was any other way. So keep us on your list and I'll keep you updated!!

Shuttles and Body Pillows

It’s a crazy thing how the mind works. Last week, my sister was flying in from Europe. Since she lives there, she doesn’t have a cell phone that works both there and in the States. (at least that is the story that I get) Since I live the closest to the airport, and talk to her the most, I was tasked with safely picking her up from the airport. Which sounds easy, except she was coming in at 1am on a weeknight and I was already going to be 3 hours away. So I found what I thought to be a wonderful, cheap, shuttle service. Turns out, you get what you pay for.

They called me the day of her flight to confirm and I explained to them that she was flying in from Europe and I would have no way of contacting her. At this time, I was told that their office closed at midnight, so we decided that the driver would be in an assigned spot 30 minutes after she landed. Around 9:30 that night, they called again, to confirm. I explained again that I had no way of contacting her and that the driver was just supposed to be there to meet her. At this point, I was told that the office would stay open until they picked her up. How nice. At 12:30, they called and said that her flight had taken off an hour late from Miami. OK, great. So what? Well, that means she won’t be there at 1:25am to be picked up, and she should be ready around 2:15. But the problem was, they couldn’t get her until 4:15. A.M. From O’Hare International Airport. After she had already been awake for 24 straight hours. Great, now I am not worried at all.

I had told my dear sister that if the shuttle wasn’t there to get her after she got her baggage to find a payphone and call me. Which she did, around 2:30am. I gave her the number to the shuttle, and she called them, and then called me back, and then settled in to read her book. She finally made it to my house around 5:30am. But forgot to call me to tell me she was safe until 6:30am. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep.

But the point of this post is not to whine about Pipeline People Movers. They did do what they said they would, they got my sister from point A to point B for $29. They just didn’t do it in an extremely timely manner. My point was to tell you about my friend who is also pregnant.

For whatever reason, she has really poor circulation. So she is always cold, and her fingernails are always bluish-purple. She always sleeps either on her back or on her stomach, because if she lies on her side, then that side of her body will fall asleep while she is asleep. Which, obviously, is irritating. She was telling me about this last week, and how she bought the body pillow that is curved, and how great it was and it really helped her to sleep. So each time my phone rang, at 12:30, 2:30, 2:35, & 6:30; and then when I woke up in a panic at 5:30 because I hadn’t heard from her, and again at 6 when Workaholic returned my text telling me that she had gotten to our house safe, EACH TIME, half of my body was asleep. And I was PISSED. Not because I couldn’t feel my fingers, but I was pissed at my friend. Somehow, I blamed her for falling asleep while I was asleep. I was quite sure it had nothing to do with my rapidly expanding belly, or the weird, super-cushy pillow at the hotel, or the more firm mattress I was sleeping on…NONONO…it was my friend’s fault. And I HATED her for it.

Fortunately for both of us, my hatred lasted only until I got up for the day. In fact, I completely forgot that I hated her until I thought about going to work later that weekend. She understands, and isn’t mad at me for blaming her and hating her in my sleep. Or lack thereof. My point? It’s funny how the mind works. That’s all.

Dad & Wardrobe Update

First of all, I want to thank everyone for their well wishes and prayers for my dad. It means so much to us that we have so many people praying for him. I know it means a lot to him too.

I just got a call from my mom, he is going to have another surgery tomorrow at 9am. He had a CT scan right after his surgery, then another one yesterday at 5am. The second one was worse than the one right after his surgery. So they got him up and walking around, and did another one this morning at 7:30am. Based on that one, his doctor decided that they need to go back in and drain more fluid and clean things up a bit. So a bigger hole in his head. The level of risk is the same, so I am hopeful that he will be able to recover in a similar manner and get the heck outta the hospital and be able to recuperate at home in a few days.


Secondly, and this is totally off the subject, but I have to tell you how I brought out my maternity clothes last night. It’s something that I know I’ve needed to do for a while, but was too lazy/tired/trying to keep my house clean for open houses to do it. And I had 3 immediate thoughts…

1) OMG…these clothes are so. much. cuter. than my regular wardrobe. What the hell took me so long to unpack them?

b) OMG…I have so. many. more. maternity clothes than I do regular clothes. What the hell took me so long to unpack them??

3) Workaholic is wrong, I do need to wash these before I wear them. (His theory was that I didn’t actually pack them up that long ago, and I washed them before I packed them. He was not right, but I didn’t realize it until I was hanging up the third to last shirt. And yes, I did hang up all the shirts before deciding to take them all down and wash them. Damn him for not being a housewife.) And what the hell took me so long to unpack them???

It is actually really sad, looking at my closet now. I took down all the shirts that I probably will never wear again. And I put them into a bin. Even though I will never wear them again because a) they are ugly or 2) they will not fit. Most of these shirts I haven’t worn since before I got pregnant with Sam, because I didn’t like the way they fit!! What is wrong with me?? Seriously??

I think I just like getting good deals on clothes. I wore a lot of hand-me-downs as a kid, partially because I think my mom really hated shopping and partially because money was tight. So now, when I see a good deal on a shirt I think is cute, I buy it. And then I get it home and realize that I hate it. It is usually shirts, because do you have any idea how hard it is to find pants for a woman with a big ass/thighs and a 25 inch in-seam??? I already gave 3 huge trash bags full of clothes to Goodwill, but I am thinking I need to make another run. Even though that will put us over the maximum donation amount on our tax return for 2010. Get ‘em outta my house!!

Maybe if I start purging and “packing”, then the house will sell. Maybe? Just maybe??

I Miss Her

In preparation for leaving for the weekend, I did all kinds of getting ready. I got my hair done (yes, it was that bad), went to the grocery store, did laundry, picked up the drycleaning and went to the bank, ran to Target, and made sure the dishwasher was emptied. When I put Sam to bed on Tuesday night, I was thinking that it was the last night until Sunday when I would be putting her down. We had planned on taking her to my mother-in-law's house the next night so Workaholic could go to work super early on Thursday.

After I laid her down, I started to miss her. Like, really miss her. I felt so bad I had spent all my time running around, when I should've been spending my time with her. She was in the next room, and all I could think of was how I wasn't going to see her for 4 days. So I went in to her room and just put my hand on her back. And she jumped. Oh dear. Then she sat up, and looked around, and smiled real big. OH DEAR. Then she stood up and reached out. Great, now she is awake. I really had just wanted to touch her and stare at her.

So I pick up her and she immediately starts swirming around and pointing at random objects and pushing against me. She wants down. Sigh. Time to put her back to bed. I laid her back down and she started crying, and I walked out, and she cried for the next 5 minutes. She doesn't do that...she'll cry for a minute or two, but then give up or just fall asleep. But for 5 or 10 minutes, she just cried. Talk about breaking your heart. So now I am sitting in a hotel room, aching for bed and my little girl, and my boy and my dog. I'm so happy my dad is OK, and I am so glad I am here, but I still miss my little girl.

"I'm Having Brain Surgery Today"

***UPDATE
Dad is out of surgery and doing fine. It went well, he is in recovery and asking when he can play golf.

A few months ago, my dad slipped and fell on the ice. He hit his head and his hip. I’ve mentioned it before, but dad’s a pilot. For the past lifetime, he keeps in shape because he doesn’t want to lose his pilot’s license. He always gets up at 5am and works out, and eats healthy, and generally is annoying with the fear of going to the doctor. Not because he is afraid of what they’ll find, but of what they’ll report back to the FAA. The FAA=God. So he refused to go to the ER. A simple concussion could ground him for a year.

A few weeks ago, the bigwig at work told inferior bigwigs to tell dad that she didn’t feel safe flying with him. This was HUGE. Like HUGEBIGFUCKINGDEAL huge. It was a slap in the face to him to hear that. What the f*ck was going on?? My mom called me at work, and it took my breath away. Oh dear, this HAS to do with the fall.

We (my mom) had noticed little things. Like, he generally didn’t feel good. He was whinier, bitchier, if you will. He shuffled a bit when he walked, and at Easter Workaholic saw him fall against a door frame, twice. And when they golfed, his normal slice had turned into a hook. All of this was explained away by arthritis and Charlie horses. Until last weekend.

Last weekend, my parents went to a wedding, where my dad saw his brother and his cousin, who is a MD. Between the two of them yelling at him and asking him what the hell was the matter with him, why hadn’t he been to a doctor?? he decided to go to the doctor. The woman that he saw sent him for a CT, and was like, “I’m sure it’ll show nothing, you are completely asymptomatic.” Imagine both of their surprises when the scan came back and the right side of his brain was squished by fluid.

He can talk normally…just ask the doctors and nurses. He can argue. He was driving his manual transmission truck up until last Tuesday, when he was ordered not to. (Apparently the risk for seizure for a chronic subdural hematoma is pretty severe when you’ve got a ton of blood/spinal fluid on your brain, and driving is not advisable.) He could golf, although not well, just ask him. His memory is what it used to be, that is to say, he can remember the story of his student who had a grand mal seizure at 30,000 feet 5 years ago, but he can’t remember where he left his coat.

So at this moment, my dad is in surgery. My sister is on a plane from England. My other 2 sisters are here with me and my mom and his brother and sister-in-law. And we are just feeding ourselves and hanging out and waiting. The neurosurgeon and his resident seem to think this is a fairly routine surgery. Drill a couple holes, let the fluid drain, DON’T PLUG THE HOLES WITH CAULK, go home and recuperate. (after a couple of days) Give it a month before you start driving again. Flying…well, one step at a time, but we think so. It might take a couple of years, but I think he’ll get back up there.

So the past week has been scary. Not as scary though, as the weeks before, when he was GROUNDED and we didn’t know why. Now we have a plan. And my dad will be around for a long time to come. He’ll see Sam grow up, and can teach her and her little brother or sister how to fish. Maybe even play golf. Who knows…all I know now is that we sit, and wait, and hope for the best. Prayers are welcome.