The Bathroom Floor

This is our real bathroom floor. I just took this picture and uploaded it all by myself. I'm inordinately proud of this small feat of technological savviness.

When I was fifteen, I woke up one morning bound and determined to go to school even though I had a temperature well over 100, chills, no memory of anything that had happened the day before, and had made it downstairs to the bathroom only by sheer will. I laid down on the bathroom floor and there I stayed until my father came in about a half hour later and asked me what the hell I was doing. The bathroom floor was cracked linoleum, and I was smack in front of the door that led to the basement where the cool air fanned me and convinced me I would be fine as long as I didn't move from that spot.

One summer during college, Bestest Friend and I shared an apartment that had a gag-inducing carpeted bathroom. I dare not imagine all the gross things that had once happened on that carpet. When I imagine that place today, I imagine a new set of hilarious girls living there with the same gross shag carpeting in the bathroom. I remember a good friend spending the night in that bathroom once, spewing Olive Garden tiramisu and some choice beverages, and I often thought she would have been better off doing her hurling outside with the dog shit because that carpet probably made her even more sick every time she caught a break.

The boy was in our bathroom night all Wednesday night. From the comfort of our bedroom, I patted myself on the back for making sure our bathroom floor is always clean. There may be dust bunnies all over the hardwood floor elsewhere in our house, our bed may never be made, and I don't even want to talk about the state of the dust on some of the bookshelves, but the bathroom floor is always clean, just for such occasions. I also stayed awake all night in the comfort of our bedroom because I was incredibly worried, but let's pretend I stayed awake all night giving myself quite a little pep talk on my super housekeeping skills.

The boy has slowly been getting better, hanging out on the recliner in the living room, drinking flat 7Up and Gatorade, while I have been busy hiding away from him for fear the sickness will overtake me, waiting until he is sleeping and refilling his glass, and hiding in the bedroom talking on the phone with Bestest Friend, discussing how best to build a bomb (turns out we don't really know, but I'm confident we could figure it out...maybe), and hoping against hope that this really is just a 24 hour stomach bug.

This morning, I took my stumbling self into the bathroom, but as I got to the doorway, I stood there for a moment. I walked back into the bedroom and spoke loudly because you know how you can't regulate your voice in the morning because you haven't used it all night and you just don't know how loud it's going to be when you speak for the first time in the day? That was going on.

"Did you know there are black tiles on the bathroom floor?"

He just stared at me. "How many times a day do you wipe that floor?"

I guess those black tiles have always been there.

Multifarious and Nefarious Aren't Synonyms

I can't listen to the Joan Baez CD I found in my dad's car without crying.

When I see a silver Suzuki Vitara, I crane my neck to see if he's driving.

I put the earrings on that he gave me that Christmas before he died and I smile, knowing he'd be pleased that the first coherent thought of the morning was of him.

Dr. BB slams his fist on the table, faking anger, and I nearly jump out of my skin, expecting true anger.

Every day. I think about him. I have so much I want to say to him.

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She's still here, but I don't know what to say when I call.

I put on that bracelet every day, knowing you picked it out just for me.

She sent me a Valentine's Day package and included a note that talked about sex. I was simultaneously horrified and delighted.

Every day. I think about her. I have so much I want to say to her.

The Deep End

Do you remember that scene from the third season of The Gilmore Girls? The Independence Inn had a fire, it was going to cost a ton of money to fix, and the owners closed it, putting two of our beloved characters out of work. Lorelai, our plucky main character, brings champagne and apple juice over to Sookie, our newly pregnant chef, and Jackson's house and Lorelai proceeds to get S&J excited that something Really Big has happened and then toasts to "new and exciting opportunities." Do you guys remember that? Unemployment = new and exciting opportunities.

So there are a lot of new and exciting opportunities in the NGS/Dr. BB household right now.

We sit down every night and talk about Plan B and Plan C and the (not so) ridiculously farfetched Plan D. We each stay awake at night, long after we have turned off the lights, our brains refusing to rest, wondering what the fuck is happening to our lives right now.

His body is absorbing this stress, I'm sorry, these new and exciting opportunities, and is eating him away from the inside. We have been to the doctors and they tell us the same thing. Men, most of the time, react to stress by losing weight, and boy is his body great at that. My body has taken to absorbing this stress by sitting in my shoulders until I can't move my neck.

It's exhausting, this constant worry and struggle about what is going to happen.

I try, I try so very hard, to live in this moment. We are happy here in this moment. There is peace, there is joy, and there is optimism. It was imperceptible at first, but now I'm noticing that the optimism is fading day by day. The low grade worry is starting to simmer into something more to worry about.

So forgive me my silence here. We're busy working on Plan E right now.

Blog Share

-R- is at it again, organizing another round of anonymous posts around the internet via a Blog Share. Bloggers write anonymous posts and they get posted on a site not their own. I will include a link of all the participating blogs at the end of the following anonymous post.

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I wish I had a profound topic to discuss for this blog share, but alas, I don’t, so please enjoy a few rants, confessions and random statements that I can’t make exactly make public on my blog. So here goes....

• Someone I work with says “prior to” instead of “per” or “according to” and I prefer not to correct them and instead laugh and tell my friends about it. (Example: Prior to this memo...)


• My mother-in-law got mad that we didn’t send her a Christmas card. She told my husband in mid-January that we needed to send her a card. Never mind the fact that we didn’t send anyone a card. And that we live close to each other. And that we saw her on Christmas day.


• I can finish a whole bottle of wine by myself easier and quicker than I’d like to admit.


• When I’m home by myself, I don’t flush the toilet after every pee.


• I hate when people discuss politics and religion. Mostly because I don’t personally know enough about those topics to make an informed decision. And neither do most of the people I know who bring up those topics.


• I have a hard time thinking of something I’m really good at. Most things I’ve done in life, I would say I’m in the range from decent to above average (high school band, academics). I think cooking could be my thing, if life and work didn’t interfere.


• I found out some people I make a lot of money. It’s not the actual amount that is shocking, but the fact that I know they more often than not are late on their utilities and rent, have tons of outstanding debt and have had things repossessed. They borrow money from people (not me). It makes me thankful that my husband and I are responsible with our money, and because of that, we can afford nearly anything we need and want, despite our somewhat expensive habit of frequent meals out.


• I love reading mommy blogs and birth stories, despite being nowhere near close to ready to have kids.


• My sister-in-law gives the shittiest Christmas presents. I know it’s the thought that counts, and I love a good sale, but I know she didn’t think very hard about getting me those gap pajamas half off (with a coupon??) the day after Thanksgiving. Or about getting the hubby an as seen on tv money clip.

Anything you'd like to share?

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A list of other blogs participating, each with an anonymous post to share:

The Time for Change
Bright Yellow World
Reflections in the Snow-Covered Hills
Totally Serial
Daily Tannenbaum
Andrea Unplugged
Malfeasance
From Kim's Desk
Rediscovering Me
Mama Bub
Being Five
Nothing Is Easier Than Self-Deceit
Molly's Musings
Heidikins
Snarke
Did I Say That Outloud?
The Reluctant Grownup
And You Know What Else
Bwildered
Thinking Some More

Things I'm Loving

1) The song "What I'd Say" by Earl Thomas Conley. Whenever I have to drive somewhere, I just put this song on and keep listening to it over and over and over again. It's the "Undo It" of January and February.

2) The board game Pandemic. It's a cooperative that you can play with two people. We have played it approximately a million times (we used to go for walks around the lake in our free evenings, now it's too bloody cold to go outside, so we play this instead). It's never old and always fabulous. The idea is to save the world from outbreaks of various diseases. You work together to defeat the game. It took us three or four rounds of the game before we really understood how to strategize, but now we are addicted.


3) My new spectacles. You guys might not know this about me, but I have an incredibly small head and small features. Most eyeglasses completely overwhelm my face. Enter the company Bevel, with their awesome selection of eyewear. I hesitate to admit how much I paid for this pair of glasses, but they fit, are comfortable, and are awesome. My last pair was also Bevel and when I tried on glasses at my place, Specs Optical, the really cool lady helping me showed me approximately a dozen great frames, all of which fit and were my style, but in the end, I went with Bevel again because it is the company for me. Bevel did not pay me to say any of this, but if they'd like to, I would not turn them away!


4) Gilmore Girls season 3. What? You aren't watching Gilmore Girls on DVD when your husband leaves the house? For shame.

5) The book Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. I just can't read this book enough. It's so good. I think I've read it half a dozen times and I'm going to keep reading it until Owen somehow materializes into a real teenager in front of me.

Books I Read in January

Please keep in mind that school didn't start until late in January and I was in Michigan for a good chunk of it, so I had lots and lots (and lots and lots) of time to read.

Shatter (The Children of Man) by Elizabeth C. Mock - Free fantasy download for my Kindle. This was a perfectly palatable novel and I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but I don't feel at all tempted to purchase any more novels from the series.

Watchlist edited by Jeffrey Deaver - So this is an interesting idea. It's a thriller novel with each chapter written by a different author. And. Um. It was fine. Not particularly brilliant, but I kind of like how disorienting it was when the tone would change with each chapter. It kept me on my toes. Again, it was a free download. I'm not sure I would have paid for it.

Don't Die, Dragonfly by Linda Joy Singleton and Danger in the Shadows by Dee Henderson - More free downloads! I think there were a lot of free books in January to try and attract all those new Christmas gift receiving Kindle owners into buying more novels. Unfortunately, I remember absolutely nothing about either of these books, so I'm going to go ahead and say there were probably fine, but obviously not memorable.

The Justice Game by Randy Singer - This was a fascinating little read about a fictional court case revolving around gun laws. It did a great job of explaining some of the intricacies of case law. I found it to be really revelatory and I appreciate that I still don't know the author's opinion on the whole thing. Just really good. (Also: free download.)

The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde - I loved this. It's a strange world in which Thursday Next lives and that's all I can really say. I just loved it and want to read all the rest of the Thursday Next books, but I'm afraid they won't be as good, so somebody who has read more than the first one needs to give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. (Yes, fine, I paid for this one.)

En Route: A Paramedic's Stories of Life, Death, and Everything in Between by Steven "Kelly" Grayson and Unbillable Hours: A True Story by Ian Graham - (Free!) Do you want to read memoirs from bitter men who hated their jobs? Then read these. If you prefer your world cheerier and less anguished, just ignore the temptation of reading these. Free or not.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot - So this was on everybody's list of must reads from 2010. I heard Skloot on NPR about half a dozen times before I was finally convinced that it was worth my time. And it totally was. I have some beefs with the book (mostly chronologically - she nearly killed me with the back and forth and back and forth in time), but it was worth it. I'm fascinated by the fact that this story, so big, so huge, is so unknown. I'm even more fascinated by the complications of it all. I started off my undergrad class this semester by explaining how everything involving human beings is complicated and I used the idea of HeLa cells to talk about what I meant by complicated. There's a reason it was on all those lists.

Always the Baker, Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker - (Free!) Perfectly serviceable chick lit. I read this on the flight back from Michigan and it served its duty of rendering me unable to remember takeoff, landing, or anything in between.

Deadly Sanctuary by Sylvia Nobel - (Free!) I don't remember this book. That can't be good.

Tough Customer by Sandra Brown - You can't go wrong with Brown. I love the main character in this book (a character from a previous book) and so I will continue with my Sandra Brown, trashy novel loving ways.

Dog on It and Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn - Detective novels told from the perspective of the detective's dog. That's all you need to know about these books. Apparently (according to my husband) this is a trite premise (he reminds me every day that I need to read Call of the Wild, but I gotta say, I just don't see it happening), but I'd never read a book told in this perspective and it's freaking hilarious and awesome and I love Spencer Quinn. I'm currently reading To Fetch a Thief, the third book in the Bernie and Chet series and I'm enjoying it. More when I finish it.

Lives in the Balance e: Nurses' Stories from the ICU edited by Tilda Shalof - (Free!) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...This almost bored me to death. It's a series of short essays written by ICU nurses and it should be sexy and interesting and instead it read like a series of poorly written blog entries. No.

Septimus Heap Books One, Two, and Three by Angie Sage - The first book was free and I paid for the next two. The first two books were delightful and I loved every single bloody word. And the third book almost killed me with boredom. So. I think I'm quite finished with Septimus Heap, although I've heard the audiobooks are superbly well done, so if I'm ever going on a long car trip by myself, I will likely download them from the library. (Dr. BB doesn't like to listen to books on tape and on long car trips with him, I wonder why we I allowed myself to be married to a man such as that.)

Any book recommendations for me?