one plus one plus one

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I'm going to attempt to get all my breastfeeding-related posts into the new breastfeeding category in the next week or so. Even though typepad has made it a little easier by allowing you to make changes to multiple posts at a time, it is still an ardous process. Which is why I've waited so long to do it. Bleh.

Bad boyfriend

I've had my iP0d since last Christmas, and yet it's just occured to me to listen to the thing on my 1/2 mile treck from the parking garage to the office. I tend to gorge myself on a single artist for days or even weeks and right now I'm on a serious Moby kick. The hypnotic nature of his music takes me back to my college days, 1990, 19 years old, living in a house with a bunch of friends on campus. They weren't very happy days overall, mostly because of my boyfriend. I moved into that house to live with him, and while my grades improved greatly since I living there and no longer cutting class to hang out there, he was all wrong, wrong, wrong for me. I knew that from the beginning, really, but he had decided he had to go out with me and pursued me relentlessly and finally I got tired of saying "no" and gave in. What followed was a 2-year relationship that at its end had me completely wrung out with no sense of self remaining, and it took another year to learn how to be me again.

My two main escapes were drinking and dancing. Drinking was an every night occurance, and dancing was on the menu at least 4 nights a week. We'd walk to High St. and downstairs into my second home, where it was easy as pie for an underaged girl to get a drink and the alternative music played non-stop. I'd lose myself in the Cult, or Sisters of Mercy, or New Order and dance. Alone. Almost always alone. Some flirting might occur since bad boyfriend was usually at home or at a preppy bar drinking with his buddies, but mostly it was my time to escape my unhappiness for a few hours. I remember one night another guy and I gravitated toward each other, caught in the same movement and mood. I often wonder what would have happened if bad boyfriend hadn't showed up, right at the moment when this other boy grabbed my hand. I turned away from him, to the jerk I professed to be in love with, and in that movement I imagine I made a choice, one that occasionally still haunts me.

Bad boyfriend eventually broke up with me, decided to move away from Columbus, and then farted around for a couple of months before actually moving out of the house. Many of my high school friends decided they like him better than me, but fortunately for my sanity one girlfriend - who I met through bad boyfriend, oh the irony - stuck with me. She stayed with me most nights, especially the ones when he brought home a girl or two just to fuck with me. We slept in my twin bed together and she'd go get me water in the middle of the night so I wouldn't have to leave my bedroom and walk past his closed door. We had a falling out a few years later over another mutual friend and she is no longer in my life but I do think of her occasionally and wish her well.

I remember the day bad boyfriend moved out. By that time we had regained some measure of civility and I was home while he and his friends moved his few possesions into someone's truck. My heart broke again and again that day and I remembered how my high school religion teacher had told us that while engaging between premarital sex was between us and god, we had to think of the emotional ramifications of doing so. And that living together created an investment in the relationship akin to marriage, and breaking up under such circumstances was not unlike going through a divorce. She was right. After bad boyfriend was all moved out, I went to my dad's house, crawled onto his lap, and cried.

After that summer, I still can't drink gin. Or tequila. Actually, it's only vodka for me these days.

Worlds collide!

MD and Jamie and I had the good fortune of having lunch/dinner with whylime and her sweets this weekend. Columbus happened to be smack dab in the middle (or third) of their route between New Haven and Santa Fe, and so I was able to meet one of my favorite bloggers and online friends in person. Actually, whylime was the very first person to comment here at one plus one plus one, so I have a definite soft spot in my heart for her.

This wasn't the first time I've met an online buddy IRL. Back when the best ever-girl-kicks-vampires'-asses show was still on, I met regularly to watch with a group of other Buffy fans met online at TWoP. Kelly and I have met as well, although we have yet to get the boys together (gotta do that before the summer is over!). But whylime is the first person I've met in real life that I got to know through this blog, so it was a little different. Of course the potential for extreme awkwardness is always present in these types of situations, but by the time we were sitting around eating our food MD and I felt like we were hanging out with old friends. My only regret is that Columbus ended up being a pitstop rather than an overnight stay, because we were having such a good time we didn't really want them to leave! But of course Santa Fe was the actual destination of this trip and I'm happy to know that they have finally landed and are beginning this new phase of their lives.

Oh wait, the other regret is that they didn't have the lentil on this trip. For his sake, it was for the best, but oh boy the fun he and Jamie would have had!

Wow

If you're not reading L'eggs Up and Laughing you really should be, and here's the number one reason why: Ova Girl's birth story is up and it's amazing.

My grandma, my mom, and me

So it's official. Three generations of women in my family are now on anti-depressants. My mom and I were discussing my grandma's care a few weeks ago and she mentioned that grandma's been having nightmares and my mom wanted the doctor to prescribe an anti-anxiety medication. I said I'd been thinking she should be on an anti-depressant, since, duh, she has a long history of depression. My mom was stunned for a minute, because, again, duh, and said she thought that would be a good idea.

When someone is chronically depressed and yet gets up and goes to work everyday, it becomes a part of who they are. "Oh, yeah, grandma gets a little down sometimes." And everyone looks past the fact that she hasn't slept through the night since my grandpa died, 20 years ago. Or that she refuses to initiate social contact with anyone, even family members. It's "just the way she is." And so, I figured, I just got down a little. It's just the way I am. Nothing to worry about or be treated for. After all, depression happens when you can't get out of bed for three days in a row, not when you're going to work and leading a productive life.

I can't begin to describe how being on z0loft has changed my life. I haven't always been depressed, but I've been in a slow, downward spiral for so many years, I hadn't realized how unhappy I was. Or if I did realize it, I blamed MD. Or my job or whatever, but it never occurred to me that I needed serious help.

I still have bad days. I was off last monday and tuesday and was feeling down about this (the job thing, mostly*), and I wasn't as productive as I wanted to be. But instead of laying in bed all day, I made a bag. I watched a movie**. I walked the dogs. What a difference a little blue pill can make.

---

*I got an email from them on thursday, so all hope is not lost. We'll see.
**How freaking hot was Mr. Phoenix in that movie, huh? I wanted to lick him all over.

It's really incomprehensible to me

I like to bury my head in the sand sometimes, and just try not to think about the awful things that happen every day in every corner of the world. So when I see pictures on the front page of the newspaper of children in the MIddle East that have been caught in the current conflict, bandaged, crying, alone, I look at their faces, wish I could hold them and take away their pain, and then I place the paper face-down and walk away. I retreat back into my safe, white, middle-class bubble and I go on with my day.

But then, then I read about a 17-month-old toddler, who was raped and suffocated by his mother's boyfriend. Here, locally, a few miles from where MD and I used to live. A 17-month-old, 20 pound, baby. How do you look at a body that small and see it as something to stick your dick into? Really, how does that work??

Back when I had faith I would take my anger and give it to God. He, after all, as I was taught, could handle it. That is what He was there for. I don't know where to put it now.

Content-free

Don't you hate it when a job prospect falls into your lap out of the blue and so you meet for coffee and it goes well and they call right when they say they're going to and you go to the office for another interview and they ask you for references and writing samples and say they'll get back with you in a few days and then more than a week goes by without a word and your references haven't been called and you find yourself wondering if maybe something very bad happened to the person who intereviewed you and oh god is that terrible but otherwise why would they just not call?

Yeah, me too.

I've not been writing much here lately and that's because every time I think about posting, it's on a topic that i've absolutely done to death. So, unless I say otherwise, you can assume that:

• MD and I are struggling, although we do have our good days.
• We're broke. To the point that I'm trying to find a 2nd job.
• My job/work situation is not happy at the moment and while there's a chance things might work out I'm once again looking at my resume and sending out feelers into the corporate sector.
• I have days where I'm depressed and everything looks hopeless and they usually follow days that are happy and satisfying and overall I feel like an ungrateful bitch with multiple personalities.
• I love my kid and he's wonderful.

Also, today I'm off and instead of enjoying it the a/c isn't working so I'm at panera hiding out with the laptop waiting for the repair guy to call.

See, wouldn't you rather have pictures?

NOOO!!!!

$3 garage sale kitchen

Garage sale find
Originally uploaded by ally.o.

Also makes a great carport!

Ahhh, summertime

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