Drummer Boys

Sniffle

When Sam cries, tears come out.

This is a new development. When babies are first born, they cry and cry, but there aren't really tears.

Now, big sloppy wet ones. It makes him seem sadder somehow. It breaks my heart.

Merlo

It's Merlo, not Maslo. Like the wine I had with dinner tonight. My oral surgeon. Duh.

I'm feeling much better now. In fact, by the time I found the most appropriate person to whine to (my mother), I was already feeling better. Dammit.

Well, so much for milking it. My gum is squishy where the tooth used to be.

The toof!

I broke a tooth. Like, 2 1/2 years ago.

ASIDE: This whole breaking a tooth thing makes me feel like a hillbilly. Yes, I brush my teeth. Yes I floss (most of the time). I am 31 years old. I should not have broken teeth. Alas, I grind. And grinding weakens your teeth, and then they break. Who knew?

Anyway, I broke this tooth like 2 1/2 years ago, but I've been putting off getting it fixed. This is the same tooth I broke eons ago, and I had a crown put on. Now it's broken at the nub. The tooth had to go.

ASIDE: I hate going to the dentist. Vehemently. I go anyway, for all my cleanings and stuff, but I hate it. Mostly I don't like the taste of blood in my mouth. And the sound of the drill.

I managed to avoid having the tooth pulled because I was either a) trying to get pregnant or b) pregnant for, like, 3 years. So I couldn't have x-rays. So I couldn't get the tooth pulled. But finally, the jig was up.

I had a bad feeling about having this tooth pulled, even though the hygenists at my dentist's office encouraged Dr. Hirsch to send me to "the hunky one," namely my new oral surgeon, Dr. Maslo. He was in fact hunky, but this didn't make me feel any better as I fretted over the consent forms, which described in intimate detail gruesome potential side effects including, but not limited to, unending pain, nerve damage and/or the permanent loss of my sense of smell.

The pulling itself went fine. It was over before I knew it, really. But now I'm bleeding. Bleeding, and eating jello, and typing. And I'm a little sweaty. And I think I might throw up.

And it hurts like a bitch.

I knew this was a bad idea.

Blackberries (yum)

I can't eat berries. They make my son barf.

Ah, the joys of nursing. The best, sweetest parts of summer snatched from my hands and hurled into space.

But I am overly dramatic.

Instead, of eating blackberries, I think I'll buy myself a Blackberry. So I can email while I'm driving and stuff.

Cool.

Tonight

Tonight, I went crazy.

I've had the failed experiment called "the office" hanging over me for almost a year and half. "The office" is closely related to several other failed experiments, including "my staff" and "that guy I thought was my best friend," both of which actually feel worse to think about than "the office." Lately, I've caught myself involuntarily spitting out the following key phrases when I recall these wretched themes:

1. "What a fuck-up. Why the fuck did I do that?"
2. "Oh god, I can't believe I hired those idiots."
3. "Jesus, I wish I'd never met that moron. What a loser!"

In addition to very nearly wrecking me and my entire family financially, immediately following its slow and extraordinarily painful demise, the office had the hideous side-effect of filling my garage with all kinds of crap, from disassembled office furniture to paper samples to bags of sugar packets.

For months I've been contemplating the garage. "I should get the garage organized and see if I can sell some of that stuff," I'd say. The "sell some of that stuff part" was designed to make me feel like I could recover just a little bit of the estimated quarter of a million dollars I threw away on the office and the idiots and the moron. But I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I couldn't bring myself to do it because:

1. The prospect was totally overwhelming. (Think floor to ceiling boxes, mixed and unmarked).
2. I was unprepared for the onslaught of emotion that would come with throwing out 247 styrofoam coffee cups, the "Dreams and Wishes" jar that used to sit on the corner of my desk, and an entire green trash bag of tangled, unidentifyable computer cables.

Tonight, the pain of not doing it (i.e., continually feeling the pain and embarrassment of the entire sordid affair, reinforced by all the stuff persisting in my garage) became bigger than the pain of doing it (i.e., getting a bunch of plastic bags together and going ape-shit in there). And I went crazy.

I now have approximately 482 big green trash bags, some of which are arranged around the edges of my driveway, and some of which are still inside the garage, waiting to be hauled outside. I am left with the following office items: three desks (with chairs and rolling carts) and four office guest chairs, which are actually nice and worth keeping. Everything else is either in use in my basement or previously sold. Or trash.

In my garage, we also have a weight bench, Max's old desk, two outdoor trash cans, several basketballs, a four-drawer filing cabinet and a heated towel rack that is decidely NOT childproof. Oh, and a box of wrapping paper.

It's done. Finally.

Sitting

By way of baby update, the boy is now sitting up like a champ, including sitting in the buggy at the supermarket. He's starting to get a little more daring - bending over further to reach things, bouncing up and down on his little butt, etc. All of this is making him more likely to fall over than he was at the beginning. Strategy: clench teeth, grin, exclaim, "Hey, you're fine!" Seems to keep tears to a minimum.

Here we are headin downy oshun:

I took this pic while we were pulled off on the side of the road near a creepy clearing with part of a rusted tractor in the middle of it. Eerily, someone had been mowing around it. There was a path leading into the woods. Nearby, a middle-aged black lady took an awful long time getting her mail; she seemed to be watching us. I decided I would use this as a scene in my first horror novel.

Dave was laughing as he told the story to my parents. He said, "All of a sudden, Ann goes scampering off toward the damn thing, just like they do in the horror movies right before the thing jumps out of the bushes and eats them!" He's right, you know.

There are too many wonderful shots from the beach and a little before. You'll just have to go here to see them.

Meanwhile, Sam has started daycare full time. This is good timing as I am now totally broke from barely working for 6 months. His teacher, Maria, is totally in love with him. She emailed me in the middle of the day yesterday to tell me so. Then, when we went to pick him up, Maria's husband said (in his spanish accent), "Can I tell you something? Your boy is amazing! He is so beautiful!" To which Dave (politely) replied, "All the kids here are adorable." Maria's husband said, "Well yes, but some are more beautiful than others." lol

I'm a twit

And a self-centered one at that.