The big D

It has become kind of trendy lately for bloggers to reveal their mental health stuff.  I think that is pretty effing awesome, because no, we don’t all have our shit together.  And because mental illness is still stigmatized, and that stigma reduces the utilization of resources and treatments that can help.  And because the last damn thing you need when your brain is messing you up is to feel alone. 

Many of my favorite bloggers suffer from depression, and they have written about it so eloquently that I kind of want to stop writing right now, because who the hell am I to say anything more?  Recently, Allie of Hyperbole and a Half had a post on depression so true and honest, I could barely get through it.  The Bloggess has been extremely open about her mental health stuff. Here is one of her early posts about it.   Her two word mantra, “Depression lies,” has been enormously helpful to me.  Julie, from I Like Beer and Babies recently did a post that really resonated with me.  Because here’s the thing.  Someone could be depressed and you would never know.  When I gave my best friend a peek behind the curtain, she was completely surprised.  Because I still get up and do all of my stuff and put on the same minimal amount of makeup I usually do.  I laugh, and post funny crap on facebook, and talk about my kids melting my heart.  And all of that stuff is true.  I’m not faking it.  Depression, at least for me, isn’t all day every day.  As much as Hyperbole and a Half’s account yanked at me with that feeling of like calling to like, the complete lack of feeling she describes is not what depression looks like for me. 

I feel everything.  All the time.  I feel too much. 

I’ve talked here a little bit about my history of depression, and one tool that has helped me keep it at bay.  But that was an account of something in the past.  Something I used to experience, and how I kicked its ass.

Crap.  So yeah, no. 

I mean yes, a little bit.  I have been pretty depressed for months, but may not have actually met criteria for clinical depression in that time.  See, before I became a professional boo-boo kisser and lunch packer and kid snuggler, I was a statistician.  And before that, I was a depression researcher.  I have a PhD in Psychology and spent seven years of my life studying depression.  I could recite the criteria in my sleep.  And have I met those criteria lately?  Hard to say.  Maybe, or maybe not quite.  I spent a decade in therapy and even longer with meditation and other tools to try to keep myself out of this pit.  And maybe it all worked a little bit. Maybe I didn't fall all the way down.

Except my brain still does the thing. 

The thing.  The thing where I go from bed to couch and nap a lot.  The thing where my brain tells me I am a failure, and worthless.  The thing where everything just seems really difficult.  The thing where all I see are the negatives.  And when I shake my head, try to snap out of it, and focus on all of the things I have to be grateful for, instead of feeling grateful, I feel guilty for being depressed when my life is so good.  Sleeping is a sweet release from feeling like complete crap, so I sleep a lot.  I read novels to escape, and I play Candy Crush, 15 lives at a time (5 on the phone, 5 on the ipad, 5 on the laptop). 

Self-care goes out the window.  I usually have a regimen of supplements that help keep me feeling good and keep my body healthy.  Calcium and magnesium for bone health, B-vitamins for hormone regulation, Fish Oil for my heart, D for mood.  You can tell me I’m just making expensive pee, and maybe that’s true, but when I stop taking those, I know I’m slipping.  Not caring about future Pam’s bone and heart health.  Not caring about anything.  I shower less often.  I don’t floss.  I eat crap.  I don’t exercise.  I lie on the couch and do nothing and then beat myself up for doing nothing. 

Here are some of the things that could help me.  Exercising.  Going outside.  Writing.  Seeing friends.  Going to see my therapist.  Yup, all of those things would help.  I really should do them.  Ugh, but then I would have to shower, and put on a bra, and get off this couch.  I’ll take a nap instead.  And months pass. 

I was a depression researcher.  I have dealt with and (mostly) successfully managed my depression for decades.  I knew I had slipped, but there is a gravitational field to depression from which it is incredibly hard to break free.  I didn’t go see my therapist, because I knew she would encourage me to do stuff, like exercise and go outside and crap, and the next week she would ask me if I had done those things.  And what if I had to tell her that no, I had just napped on the couch instead and cried into my fourth glass of whisky.  What if she saw what an utter failure I was?  Or worse, what if I had to actually get up off the couch and exercise?  Better just not to see her.  Easier.  Maybe no one will have to know.  Shame.

A few months ago, I wrote this.  I seem really happy with my hibernation, but somewhere between February and May, pleasant winter hibernation turned into depression and a complete disengagement from life.  Like I said, you might not have known.  I still met my friends when they set something up, and I always felt better when I was with them, glad that I went, but when they bailed, I was relieved that I could stay home.  I had moments of joy with my kids when the sun was shining or they were being particularly funny or adorable or just being so themselves that I was overcome with love.  Everything I said on facebook or when talking to people was true.  I just didn’t talk about the part how I was also crying for no reason and not taking care of myself and hiding in my bed all day. 

Here’s the good news.  The fact that I am telling you this means that I think it’s over.  I’m writing.  And while a part of me is still judging every word harshly and wondering why any of you would even give a crap, I’m still writing.  I filled up my old lady 4-week pill container yesterday with all of my superstitious supplements.  I got off the couch and cleaned two bathrooms, including tackling a pile of random crap that had been accumulating for several years.  When my kids made me get up six times in the space of about two minutes to refill their after-school snacks today, I didn’t even snap at them for disturbing my love affair with the couch.  Progress. 

So what got me out of it?  Well, spring doesn’t hurt.  Spring is good.  Flowers and the color green and the smell of lilac and 75 degree days and flip flops and dandelions.  Also, I decided to plan my next photo shoot.  I’m going to do a pin-up shoot.  Now unlike posing in a bikini, plus size women doing pin-up is not exactly revolutionary.  That kind of fashion was made for curves, and plenty of curvy women know it and have demonstrated it beautifully.  But while a pin-up shoot may not be as political or groundbreaking as wearing a bikini, you know what it is?  Fun.   It’s fun to buy leopard print bras and matching panties with attached garters.  It’s fun to buy slinky red wiggle dresses and fabulous corsets. It’s fun to experiment with red lips, and play with crazy rolled up hair, and plan something that will make me feel good. 

From the couch.  I planned it from the couch. 

I’m not sure what the moral of this story is.  In part, I just want to be honest and tell my story, particularly because there was a shame component that kept me from seeking help.  Even me.  Depression researcher. Past board member on not one, but two non-profits aimed at reducing the stigma associated with mental illness.  Person who takes her shame and blogs about it for all to see.  Still.  Even me.  It even happened to me.  That means that even with all of the recent openness about depression, there is work to be done. 

Another part of the story is to say that part of getting out of this depression was meeting myself where I was.  I was on the couch.  Yes, if I were magically in a twice-weekly yoga class, I probably would have gotten better faster.  But I wasn’t capable of making that happen.  I was capable of shopping online, perusing pinterest for vintage hair styles and posing ideas, and getting excited about doing something fun for myself.
 

A week or so ago, a hummingbird flew into my house through my open front door, lured by the bright red glass of my foyer light fixture.  And then he couldn’t figure out how to get out.  He kept banging his head against the white ceiling, thinking it was the sky.  Over and over, it wasn’t the sky. The door was wide open right next to him, but he tired himself out banging his head on the ceiling.  Eventually, he stopped and perched on the light fixture, making the most pitiful sound.  I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know how.  The door was right there.  All he had to do was look over, see the flowers outside, try something new, and the whole sky would be his once more.  But he couldn’t see it and no one else could show him. Eventually, after more than half an hour, after I had stopped watching, he found his way out the door. 

I think I’ve found my way out too.

*Side note: When I posted on my personal facebook page about the hummingbird, a prophetic friend suggested I put on a sexy red dress to lure the hummingbird outside.  As it happened, the arrival of a sexy red dress may have been the tipping point that helped me find my way out.  Never underestimate the power of a sexy red dress.

The stages of phone grief

A few days ago, my phone died the final death.  It was my first smart phone, the first phone with which I could check e-mail and facebook and twitter.  It made texting 1,000 times easier than with my old phone.  I loved that phone.  I loved that phone with the unnatural love of a woman who is fundamentally shy and socially anxious, with a fear of talking on the phone, who finally found a way to feel connected without sitting at a computer. I don’t call people, but I can chat with my bestie in our ongoing scrabble game, show my parents and mother-in-law pics of their grandbabies, and share funny things the kids say or just funny things that I think.  I recognize that sometimes it’s good to unplug, and I also recognize that maybe I have a little eensy-weensy problem with unplugging.  It has been pointed out to me, believe me.  But I can’t help it.  I’m attached.  Attached to feeling connected, attached to checking in without having to face my phobia of calling people, attached to Word Hero or Drop7 or Candy Crush or whatever game is my waiting-room game du jour.  I’m attached to my phone.

I’ve dropped it a few times.  It had a crack or two across the screen, not a spiderweb, just a few minor cracks.  It was just so sexy, all sleek and smooth, without a protective cover.  It felt good in my hand, and slid into my pants so easily.  Bzzzzzz.  Mmmm, I love you phone. 

And then it happened.  I was crouched on the floor in the coat room of the Maryland Science Center, trying to get a shot of my kids and their cousin, all of whom had wedged themselves into adjacent cubbies as if to say, “Please, please, mommy, take our picture.”  Except I dropped my phone.  And there was a disheartening clunk.  I picked it up, my heart in my throat, but no… no new cracks!  Had I dodged a bullet?  It had turned off in the fall, and when I pushed the power button, it showed some weird lines not in any way resembling anything.  Uh oh.

Stage 1 of phone grief:  Denial.  My phone isn’t dead.  It’s just stuck in some weird mode.  It will be OK.  You remove the battery and put it back in.  Fingers crossed.  It’s all going to be OK.  If you’re me, you stay at this stage for quite some time, removing and replacing the battery three or four times to be really sure.  And then again an hour later, just in case it went into spontaneous remission.

Stage 2: The forgetting.  Let’s say you’re still at the science center.  And your kids are playing with a sort of simulated tornado thing.  You reach for your phone to take a photo… and then you remember.  Shit.  You have no phone.  This stage was particularly difficult for me.  Even after I got home, I kept reaching into my pocket, not feeling my phone, and thinking… “Where’s my phone?  Oh, right… it’s dead.”  And then I would weep.  Not really.  Just on the inside.  This happened over and over until I finally just put my dead phone in my pocket and carried it around so I would stop wondering where it was. 

Stage 3: The realization.  You realize… I don’t have a phone!  Crap!  This hit me hard when driving home from the science center.  I had to drive without a phone.  What if my car broke down?  What if I got into an accident?  What if my husband was trying to reach me?  What if aliens chose me for first contact and I couldn’t get a photo of them to upload to facebook?  Shit.  I don’t have a phone.

Stage 4: The research.  OK.  You’re going to need a new phone.  You are beginning to accept it, even though your dead phone is still in your pocket like a freakish security blanket.  You begin evaluating options for a new phone. 

Stage 5: The new phone.  If you’re me, within a few hours you’re at a store getting your new phone.  Because seriously, how are you going to watch the Idol results show without multitasking on your phone?  I mean, you can’t just sit and watch that schlock.  You vaguely listen in case someone doesn’t suck, glance up at the fashion so you can pretend you have your finger on some kind of pulse and don’t just wear jeans or yoga pants every day, and screw around on your phone.  No?  Just me?  So anyway, you need a new phone, like, 5 minutes ago.

Stage 6: The transition.  You have your new phone.  It’s annoyingly different from your old phone.  The buttons are in the wrong place.  You can’t figure out how to turn off the little beep that happens with every single keystroke.  It keeps autocorrecting f*cking to ducking and doesn’t have douchebag in its dictionary.  You have to add all of your favorite slang and swear words into the dictionary again.  For a minute you think you have lost all of your old Word Hero statistics and have to start in the unrated league again, but then it remembers your username and puts you back in Diamond where you belong.  Whew.  You take the memory card out of your old phone, caress its lifeless form in a loving goodbye, and put all of your photos and videos into your new phone. 

Stage 7: Love again.  Your new phone is so shiny.  It’s 4G.  It’s sexy.  Wow, it can take a burst of photos, and the camera is really much better across the board.  The screen is so big and bright.  Photos upload to facebook in, like, seconds without error messages.  You get a nice protective case for your new love, and promise to treat it better.  You love again.  It buzzes in your pocket.  The buzz is stronger.  You smile.

The “special naked hug”

It’s spring break around here, so my kids are home all day with me.  Not so good for work-from-home productivity, but great for sleeping late and hanging out in pjs.  Sleeping late, you ask?  Yes.  You can hate me if you must.  I have those rare, almost mythological children who sleep late if they stay up late.  I’m not gonna lie.  It’s freakin’ awesome.  They slept in until 10am this morning.  I don’t look like death.  It’s great. 

What’s slightly less great is what bedtime looks like.  Yeah… that’s where we pay the price.  (The completely, utterly worth-it price.)  During school breaks and on weekends, we push bedtime later, and then the kids push it later still with various requests and irresistible cuteness.  We often have our best conversations late on non-school nights, because they don’t have access to toys or iPads, and they will do anything to keep the conversation going so they don’t have to go back to bed.  So last night… around 11pm… my daughter decided to ask me a question.

“How did we get in your belly?”

Oh yeah.  Buckle up. This is happening.

“Well, there is a special hug that makes babies.  So when mommy and daddy decided to have a baby, we did that special hug, and a little part of daddy and a little part of mommy came together and that made you.”

Yeah no.  That’s bullshit, I know.  They were so on to me and not having any of it.

“But HOW do you do the hug?” my son asks.  “Do it to me.”  Oh shit.

“No, no, it’s only for grown ups who love each other.”  Or, you know, grown ups who smell really good to each other.  Whatev.  Same diff.

“Then do it to Daddy so I can watch.”   

[At this point, I am stifling laughter and totally unable to look at my silently shaking husband or I will just laugh until I pee myself and the conversation will be over.  I squeeze my kegels and continue.] “No honey, it’s very private.  I can’t do that in front of you.”

At this point, I realize that they may think it’s, like, a regular hug, and my daughter might stop hugging people.  So I specify that it’s a special NAKED hug. 

Brought the house down.  Who says I’m not funny?  Apparently, I am effing hilarious.

“But HOW?” my son asks again.  “What do you really do?”

At this point, I look at my husband, because had I been alone with the kids when this question was asked, it would have been time for the bombshell.  The P-in-V bombshell.  They’re curious and asking.  I answer honestly.  That’s my philosophy.

But not my husband’s.  He looks horrified, and tells me no, that they are too young. 

So we tell them that it is a very grown up hug and we will tell them more when they’re older.  Sigh.  Not how I would have handled it.  Why did they have to ask when he was around? 

We divert the conversation to genetics.  So the little parts of mommy and daddy have all of the information about our bodies, blah blah, and you each got parts of each of us and that’s why you (son) have daddy’s eyes and you (daughter) have mommy’s eyes blah blah boring not talking about penises or vaginas boring.

Oh, the non-boring part of this is that my son mixes up the word for cells and nerves, because he learned both of those words during another 11pm delay tactic/conversation about “How do our eyes see?”  Except he can’t remember the word nerves, so he calls them “nerds.”  So he says, “So daddy’s nerds and mommy’s nerds went together and made us?”  I die from cuteness.  And also, yeah, pretty much.  Our nerds played a big role.

Then my daughter realizes that we keep talking about a man and a woman.  She asks what happens if there are two mommies or two daddies.  I’ve never been prouder.  I leave out the concept of adoption for now because I don’t want to add the complexity of unwanted children to their lives (P-in-V, OK.  Unwanted children, not OK.  Am I weird? Contraception and sex-for-fun-not-babies talk, later.  Not tonight.)  I explain that if two men want to have a baby, they need a woman to help them.  And if two women want to have a baby, they need a man to help them. 

We ask if they have any questions.  They don’t.  They go to bed.  My husband and I discuss/argue for a half hour, I post the whole thing to facebook, and then we go back to watching Castle.

Today, on the way to the grocery store, we talk a little more about it.  I give them the names for egg and sperm.  I talk about the sperm swimming to find an egg, and how daddy has millions of sperm, but most of the time there is only one egg at a time.  But that I sent out two eggs, and two of daddy’s sperm found my eggs, and that’s why I had twins. We’ve talked about periods before, because for a while there, I couldn’t even pee alone. So I reintroduce that.  We talk about ovaries and testes.  “You mean my nuts?”  Yes, honey.  Your nuts.  I love my kids.  You’re right.  Testicles is a lame, un-pleasing word.  Nuts.  Much better.

“And the baby grows and grows until it’s ready to come out.”  They already know how babies come out.  We talk about it again.  How babies usually come out, and how they didn’t come out the usual way.  “And then the doctor sewed you back up.”  Yup.  C-sections still make them laugh.  Weirdos.

And then the light bulb comes on for my son.

“So babies come out the vagina.  Is that how the sperm get in?  They go in your vagina?”

Both kids laugh uproariously at this concept, while I say yes.  I’m not sure whether they really processed the yes.  Because vaginas are just too damn funny.  So no “Tab A in slot B” conversation, as my sister put it.  But you know… something in slot B.  It’s a start.

I’m much more comfortable the more real the conversation gets.  There is nothing shameful or illicit about these questions.  And even if there were, I would rather they know they can always come to me.  Always.  I want them to know that I will tell them the truth.  For me, this is groundwork.  We are building trust that, I hope, will remain as their questions get more complicated and the truthful answers more difficult. 

We move on to a conversation about how they shouldn’t talk about any of this at school.  How private parts are private, and conversations about private parts are also private and just for our family. I’m comfortable with my kids knowing this stuff, but lots of people (including the person I’m married to) are not.  I don’t want my kids to be the ones telling tales on the playground that make the other kids say, “Ew, gross.”  I don’t want any angry phone calls from parents who prefer to keep their kids innocent of the tab-slot mechanics.

But at home, they’re safe, and they can tell me or ask me anything.  I want them to know that.  At this point, I’m pretty much just waiting for:

Knock-knock.

Who’s there?

Sperm!

Sperm who?

Sperm in your vagina!!! 

If When that happens, I will not have to fake the laughter.

The big time

This week, a high school friend posted a link on my wall of this gorgeous plus size woman in a bikini.  She was just like me.  Over 200 pounds, gall bladder scars, stretch marks, within a cup size or two of my prodigious hooters.  I look at her body and see only beauty and a flatter stomach than I could ever dream of, but for her, showing her body was a very big deal.  Just like it was for me. 

Except that she’s already kind of famous, so her post got picked up by Huffington Post, and then talked about around the world.  Big girls in bikinis are suddenly news.  Oh, hello, envy, how nice to see you.  Hi, slight tinge of bitterness, yes, yes, you did do this a year and a half ago and it was not picked up by the Huffington Post.  I know.  Shhhh.  Simmer down.

So, I did what any self-respecting blogger would do.  I stalked researched the hell out of her.  Turns out that she is effing awesome.  Her name is Brittany Gibbons.  She’s funny and real.  She doesn't like to wear a bra.  She reads smut and uses the word fupa in her blog.  OK, the more I read, the more I love this woman.  I want to be her new stalkery best friend.  (OMG you guys, she accepted my facebook friend request.)  She started an online magazine called Curvy Girl Guide. She appeared on Good Morning America in a bathing suit (one-piece at the time).  Her rationale for doing it was "Be the change you wish to see in the world," the same motto I have on a sticker on the driver's side door of my minivan so that I am reminded every single time I get in the car.  She did a TED talk in which she stripped down to a bathing suit on stage.  I love her.  Here’s the other thing I learned while stalking her, both from her TED talk and from an article written about her:

All of this attention she has gotten for showing her body has not been universally positive. 

People give her shit about her body.  People say that she is promoting an unhealthy lifestyle.  People call her fat and tell her they're surprised she managed to get a husband.  Two things.  One. Fuck those people.  Fuck them.  Two.  I’m really, really glad that’s not me. 

I posted my bikini photos, fully expecting that the 200 of my nearest and dearest friends would see them.  Instead, it was in the tens of thousands.  I still get hundreds of hits a week on that page.  My bikini adventure was a crazy wild ride for me given the small scale of my blog.  You know how many negative comments I got? 

One.

One person, not even on my blog, but on BlogHer’s link to my blog on facebook, said that I was glorifying an unhealthy body size.  Hundreds or maybe thousands of people were inspired to love their bodies more, and lots of them told me so.  One person made me feel like I didn’t deserve to love mine.  But of course that one cut me.  Of course it did.  It was outweighed by the outpouring of support, but it takes a lot of positive messages to counterbalance one negative one. 

Here’s what I learned from this.  You need a thick skin to hit the big time, and I don’t have that.  I pretty much have the thinnest skin around.  I’m not ready for the big time.  I’m not ready to absorb negative comments as the price of increased exposure.  I find myself grateful that my bikini post was not the one picked up by HuffPo.  I’m glad that strangers are not criticizing my body and making incorrect assumptions about my health.  And hurting my feelings.

I’m intensely proud to be part of the body love revolution.  But I don’t need to be the poster girl.  I’m glad I’m not the poster girl.  And the girl who is the poster girl?  She’s awesome.  Go read her blog.  Especially this post.  And this one.  And this less funny but very real and honest one. And then if you want to laugh again after that last post, this one.  

Leprechaun love/hate

One of the many, many shamrocks
strewn about my house. My daughter
insisted that I photograph this one.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to my beautiful, talented, brilliant, discerning readers.  I raise a drink to you.  (Surely it’s 5pm somewhere on this, the day of drinking!)

Let’s talk about the damn Leprechaun. 

All I remember about St. Patty’s from when I was little was wearing green.  And if people wore orange, you pinched them.  Right?  Am I making that up?  Was that regional?  Anyway, I got older, and it became about beer, green dyed or otherwise.  Guinness, black and tans, or Baileys if you were a girl-drink-drunk.  Then I got older-older and just drank whisky.  Usually not Irish whisky.  Scotch, mostly, which would probably really piss off Irish people if they cared enough to care.  But my hubs is half Irish and he doesn't seem to care, so whatev.

But these days, apparently, my children have informed me that the night before St. Patty’s, you clean the house, and then while you’re sleeping, the Leprechaun comes.  And that little fucker fucks that shit up.  Knocks over furniture, takes cushions off the couch, dumps out all of the crayons.  

So basically Leprechauns are exactly like my children?  Except short and green and THEY DON’T EXIST SO I AM EXPECTED TO MESS UP MY OWN DAMN HOUSE?!  Excuse the barrage of bad language there.  But, seriously.  Mess up my own clean house?  Not cool.  Their teachers told them this.  Because one doesn't have kids yet and the other is a grandmother. 

Look, I love my kids’ teachers.  We totally lucked out.  But teachers, you see how effed up this is, right?  Do you realize how much work you have made for me?  If you want another sweet Target gift card at the end of the year instead of a picture frame shaped like an apple, you’d better put the kibosh on this Leprechaun thing.

So love/hate I said in the title.  Where’s the love?  Here’s the love.  My daughter was so excited for the Leprechaun to come that she wanted to bring him to her bed.  No really, here is a sign she made for him so he could find her bedroom and "sleep with her." 

"Dear leprechaun, come to my bedroom and sleep with me.
Right next to my bathroom."  

She left it on the floor in the hallway outside her room.  She also created this adorable vignette of green shit to make sure the little homewrecker felt welcome.  Including hand-drawn artwork, a rainbow collage, a green crayon, and a whoopee cushion.  Which is almost... almost... cute enough to inspire me to mess up my clean house. Almost.

Instead, I decided to use distraction to minimize the mess.  A few chairs knocked down.  Couch cushions still on the couch.  No crayons dumped out.  And chocolate.  Green M&Ms pilfered from the M&M bag.  Gold coins.  Some letters to the kids and a trail of green sanding sugar.  Nothing like green M&Ms for breakfast to soften the blow of a less mischievous Leprechaun than average.  

And the kids helped clean the house last night.  

Pam – 1.  Leprechaun – 0. 

OK, so that was the blog entry I had completed and polished up, which is to say I read it over once and changed two typos.  Yeah, I wrote this last night in the past tense AS IF it were this morning.  Crazy, right?  I feel like I'm totally breaking the fourth wall here.  Yeah, I do that.  I write in the past tense about shit that hasn't happened yet.  I hope that doesn't mess up this honesty thing we have going between us.  It's all about time management and the fact that I'm funnier after a glass or two of wine.  At least in my own mind.

So here's what happened after I finished this entry.  My son had a major meltdown over wanting this Fire Mario hat because he was playing a Mario game with Fire Mario in it.  Who is Fire Mario?  You don't care. Don't worry about it.  Pray that you never need that depth of Mario-verse knowledge.  We let the kiddos stay up late on weekends, so he was extra tired and crabby.  He had a full scale tantrum, throwing himself at the ground, crying, wailing.  Not hitting, so that's awesome.  Here's the thing.  This Fire Mario hat is in our house, and he knows it.  It's in the "marble present" stash, a stash of gifts that we use to bribe our kids encourage good behavior.  

Knowing it was in the house and that my strength of will was the only thing keeping it off his head was incredibly difficult for him.  I talked him about halfway down, reminding him of all of the ways he could earn marbles to get the hat sooner, and then reminded him that the (%$#& *%&@ %&#@!) Leprechaun was coming and might leave him some treats in the morning, hoping that the prospect of treats and a stupid damn Leprechaun messing up my clean house would be enough to cheer him up.

And then he had the brilliant idea to leave the Leprechaun a note telling him to sneak into our master bathroom and get him the hat for free.  Well played, Leprechaun, well played.

My son doesn't particularly like writing, and generally avoids it like the plague.  Yet, here he is, buckled down to write the Leprechaun a note.

So now both of my kids have notes on the floor outside their bedrooms.  One seeking a bed partner, and the other seeking instant gratification.  Here is his note:

"Dear Leprechaun, I want you to go in Mom's bathroom and find the
fire Mario hat and put it in my bedroom."

Pam – 1.  Leprechaun – 1. We'll call it a draw... this year.  Asshole.

The door that shall ever remain closed to my husband

No, not the door you’re thinking.  Not the “back door.”  I’m talking about the bathroom door. 

A week or two ago, Baby Sideburns posted on her facebook page clues that one has been married a long time.  By the way, if you have kids and you’re not following Baby Sideburns, what are you waiting for?  She is the most awesomely funny mommy blogger ever.  Once, I would have aspired to be her, back when I thought I would be a humor blogger.  But then I started blogging and realized I’m way more serious and earnest than I ever would have imagined.  Who knew?  Anyway, her list included things like “Your maiden name starts to sound weird to you.”  (Yes. And also the word "maiden."  We really still call it that, huh?)  “You can say words like vagina to your husband without flinching.”  (Um, I can pretty much say vagina to almost anyone without flinching.)  “You’ll ask him to buy tampons for you.”  (Husbands shop?)   

The comments thread though, that was where the magic happened.  Hundreds of women proceeded to talk about dropping a deuce in front of their man, or hanging out putting on their makeup or showering while their hairier half dropped his kids off at the pool. 

No.  Just no.

As I shuddered inwardly at the idea of my hubby coming in to shower and shave while I did the third S, I began to wonder if maybe I’m just weird and repressed.  I grew up in a family of six with one bathroom.  It was not at all uncommon to have someone pee in the tub in desperation while someone else leisurely flipped through a Reader’s Digest on the toilet.  Oh, while a third person washed their face in the sink, and someone else did hair or makeup.  All within like three feet of each other.  That totally happened.  Other than the Ghostbusters “cross the streams” jokes when two or three dudes were peeing at the same time, it kind of sucked.  I was never really comfortable with it, but if you waited to do your (80’s South Jersey Aqua-netted) hair until no one was taking a crap, you might have had to go to school without a magnificent tower of bangs to show how cool you were.  If you waited to pee until the toilet was free, you might have had to go in the backyard on a tree, like your brothers routinely did. 

It was forced extreme intimacy and I never liked it.  So maybe when I moved out, I went too far the other way.  I’ll pee in front of someone, but that’s it.  The other stuff is private.  I basically want no one watching me.  And I have no interest whatsoever in watching anyone else.  Now that my kids can (mostly) wipe their own butts, I’m pretty much hoping I never have to deal with or in any way experience anyone else’s excrement ever again.  If it came down to it, would I caretake my husband or kids or anyone else I loved? Of course I would.  If I couldn’t afford to pay someone else to do it. 

But here were these hundreds of women talking about how they have great conversations with their man while hanging out on the toilet.  Was I crazy?  Only one way to know… I asked my sister and my best friend.   One has an open door policy.  The other doesn’t.  My friend then proceeded to ask pretty much everyone she knew, which is so awesome.  I just imagine each of her friends getting a text: “Do you guys crap with the door open?”  I really know how to start a conversation, huh?  Yeah, I’m a big hit at parties. 

So it turns out it’s pretty mixed.  Some do, some don’t, lots mostly don’t, but are OK with someone coming in to give them a roll of TP or whatever.  I’m on the extreme end.  No TP transfers even.  I have found myself trapped exactly twice in my ten year marriage, and both times he knew to stay behind the door and just throw in a roll.  Good husband.  Don’t watch me.  And don’t breathe until the door is shut again.  Not that I’m, like, extra gross or whatever.  My crap is just the normal amount of gross.  But that’s plenty gross enough for me.

I guess I’m kind of a proponent of maintaining a certain amount of mystery.  I just find someone more appealing if I have not recently experienced the sight, sound, or smell of their poop.  I’m not a blushing newlywed.  I just think some things are private.  Maybe it’s a luxury because we have two bathrooms in close proximity.  He often wants to shower when I am having my “caffeine response,” as it were.  So I use the hall bathroom if I know he needs to get ready for work soon. 

There is a part of me that wonders if I am missing out on the magic of complete open-door intimacy.  And then I think about having to smell his crap while I’m brushing my teeth, and I’m like, no, no, I’m good with it.  

Calories that totally don’t count

In general, I make thoughtful and intelligent food choices.  I cook from scratch with whole foods, and lots of fruits and veggies.  Sometimes we make homemade pizza, but then the next day, the meal plan compensates with fish and a salad.  But over the winter, the number on the scale has crept up a little and the waistband of my jeans has crept ever-so-slightly deeper into my skin.  How can this be?  I am meal planning so thoughtfully…

Except, you know, for the loopholes.  Some calories don’t count.  Here are just a few of those calories:

• Food eaten off your children’s plates.  Because you wouldn't want to waste it.

• Broken cookies or chips.  Everyone knows that crumbs are not caloric.

• Food tasted while cooking.  It’s important to sample all of your ingredients.  Especially the cheese. 

• Food eaten during major storms or when the power is out, especially if it is being eaten to save it from going bad.  (Or if it is being eaten because you don’t have internet or TV.)

• Birthday cake.  Zero calories.

• Road trip food.  Any road trip longer than five hours demands kettle chips and individually wrapped pie and pizza-flavored pretzel combos and a fourthmeal Italian sub from Wawa at midnight. 

• Wine.  Obviously the calories in wine don’t count.  The calories in other drinks, like margaritas, are slightly more complicated.  If you order a margarita at a restaurant, it has a shit-ton of calories.  But if you’re at someone’s house and they hand you a margarita, all of the calories fall out. 

• Similarly, food consumed when wine or other mood-altering substances have rendered you unable to make good food choices have considerably fewer calories than they would if you chose them in the light of day.  Like, say, a plate of nachos. 

• Food eaten to combat ennui or soothe a broken heart.  Or to help a friend combat ennui or soothe a broken heart.

• Naughty foods wrapped around healthy foods.  For example, if you were to make and eat fresh figs with bacon and blue cheese, broiled lightly, and then drizzled with balsamic reduction, the cheese and bacon are magically transformed into fruit.

• Also bacon.  Just in general.

• Holidays.  Thanksgiving pie. Christmas cookies. Traditional Arbor Day Doritos.

• Seasonally available food.  Pumpkin lattes.  Stauffer’s chocolate star cookies.  Reese’s eggs.

• Leftovers.  Naughty food choices only count once.  So you ordered chicken parmesan or fettuccine Alfredo at a restaurant in a moment of weakness, and a veritable trough of food arrived?  It’s OK.  Just eat a reasonable portion.  And then eat the rest for the next two days.  The leftovers totally don’t count.

• Food eaten on really good workout days.  If you had a good workout, it was probably enough to counteract that bag of chips.  And the burger too.  Because your muscles must need the protein.

• Regional foods when in that region.  Beignets.  Poutine.  Philly cheese steaks. New York pizza.

• Food eaten after midnight, because if you are up that late, your body is surely burning more calories than it would be if you were sleeping.  Even if you’re just on the couch watching back episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. 

• Food from a buffet.  Because you want to get your money’s worth.

• Food that you virtuously declined, but then someone came and ate right next to you and you smelled it and couldn't help yourself.

Any to add?  Comment away!