phatDonna

I would totally put this up on my wall.

Me-ow.

I don’t even like guys with this many tattoos but holy hell, Adam Levine is just surreally hot. He’s even enough to make me watch The Voice on NBC and I NEVER watch shows like that. For him? I will watch.

The first time a doctor ever brought up the idea that I was suffering from depression was in early 2000. I went in to be tested for anything that would explain some physical symptoms I was having, and all my tests came back normal. That’s when he suggested that perhaps the problem was depression. I blew him off. I was not sad. I was happy. I had a great job, had just gotten a promotion and had just recently started dating The EX and we were crazy about each other, definitely on the path to marriage. I dropped the idea.

About eighteen months later, I was miserable. There were many situational things that were going on that could explain why I was feeling what I was feeling, but I just knew inside that the problem was something else. Because I had this feeling. That was 2001, and I have just now come up with words to crudely describe what it feels like.

Depression feels like a thirst to me. That’s as close to a physical description as I can get. It’s like there is just something missing in me, something I desperately want or need but I have no idea what it is or how to get it. I couldn’t figure out how to make myself feel better, and even if I knew how I wouldn’t have been able to get up off the couch to do it.

When I’m on medication, I don’t feel that way. And the first time I was on medication, I realized that I felt better than I had since probably my late teens. That’s how long I had been suffering and just not knowing that something was really wrong.

I really want to start a movement to rename depression. Depression sounds like “I’m just a little down.” My depression manifests itself more often as anger and that desperate emptiness. I don’t cry. I’m don’t think of hurting myself. I’m just pissed off and empty. I know it’s different for everyone, but the name “depression” makes it easy to dismiss the condition as something you can just shake off. Like, “Oh you’re depressed? Go get your nails done and eat some cheesecake and you’ll feel better.”

I’m not sure what the point of this post is. It’s just something I’ve had on my mind for a while now and wanted to get out. Depression and anxiety disorders are so much more than their names imply. You KNOW if you don’t feel right, if you don’t feel like yourself. If you have ever thought of talking to your doctor about it, I can’t say strongly enough that you should. There’s no reason to suffer.

Depression is real, it can be debilitating, but it can be fixed.

Lists are not my friend. While I enjoy the act of making a list (I love sitting down with a good pen and fresh piece of paper and writing down tasks to complete or items to buy – it makes me feel like I COULD possibly one day be an organized person) they don’t help me at all.

If I were to make a grocery list, for example, chances are I would forget to bring it with me to the store, or if I brought it with me, I’d forget to look at it, or I would have forgotten to put something on it anyway. So I rarely bother with lists.

I thought the iPhone would help me because it has a Notes feature where you can create and then look at your lists digitally. Nope, I never use it. Well, rarely.

I would really like to figure out a way to make lists my bitch, though. Because then I wouldn’t have to bemoan the fact that in the past week I have been to Target no less than three times and all three times I have forgotten the ONE DAMN ITEM I WENT IN FOR.

I am not a smart woman.

Y’all, I can’t help it. I am so excited about the upcoming royal wedding.

I was seven years old when Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married. I remember getting up early in the morning and watching it on TV in my pajamas. Prince Charles was so dashing and Lady Diana took my breath away. A real live princess! That dress! It was the stuff of little girls’ dreams.

I am crossing all my cross-ables that I win a trip to London for the wedding. I would definitely take Bridget. She is in a very princessy place these days, and it would blow her tiny mind to get to be there amidst the celebrations and revelry and maybe even have the chance to catch a glimpse of a princess. I may be a bit jaded about marriage these days, but even I can’t help but believe in love and romance when I watch William and Kate. I WANT to believe when I look at them.

And think how many different commemorative plates I could probably pick up over there! Who wants a set?

This really has nothing to do with anything, except I just keep laughing about it.

One of my very favorite movie scenes is the part of The Hangover, when they wake up in the hotel room. But not the tiger in the bathroom. No. The funniest thing is the chair that is smoldering and the chicken walking around. I think it’s funniest because it never gets mentioned, ever.

Although later on, when Ed Helms is playing the piano as they wait for the tiger to pass out, the chicken is still walking around on the piano.

I know, it really doesn’t take much to amuse me.

I’ve noticed lately that on some of the shows I really like, I am only still watching because of the sidekicks.

The first and biggest example is How I Met Your Mother. I guess in reality, the show is about all of them, but it’s supposed to be about Ted in theory. Except he annoys me. I don’t like the Bob Saget talking to his future kids thing, although I can actually see annoying Ted morphing into Bob Saget one day. But I love Marshall and Lily and Robin and Barney and they make the show work.

Next up is Mike & Molly. I had high hopes for it because I love Melissa McCarthy (formerly Sookie from Gilmore Girls). But I’m not fond of her character on the show, and I CANNOT stand Mike. But everyone else on the show is awesome! Molly’s mom and sister are brutally funny. I even love Mike’s cop partner and Mike’s mom. So I keep watching the show.

And then we have Mad Love. As much as I L-O-V-E Sarah Chalke and Jason Biggs, there is not much really likable about either of their characters on the show. But their respective friends, Connie and Larry, are awesome.

I’m sure that this is not at all what the networks had in mind with these shows, but sidekicks are keeping these shows afloat, I think.

This past week was South by Southwest (SXSW for those of you hipster web folks out there) in Austin and when that happens the town goes crazy and traffic sucks. It also happened to be Bridget’s Spring Break. I knew I’d be scrambling for fun ways to occupy her time in the midst of all that. Plus the EX is all tied up with that shit and wouldn’t be able to spend any time with her. All that added up to a trip to Dallas so that the grandparents could get some Bridget time and we could play with cousins and aunts and uncles.

I was able to sneak away on Saturday for the Greenville Avenue St. Patrick’s Day Parade while my mom spent the day with Bridget. We drank a lot, met a cute boy and I think I got shin splints walking that day.

We celebrated my dad’s birthday. We had a sick snuggle day on the couch. We went to the zoo. We went to Six Flags.

I am fucking exhausted.

I love my kid – I absolutely do. However, any parent will tell you that when it’s ALL KID ALL THE TIME it’s hard. And Bridget decided to get extra sassy on this trip. She started saying “NO!” to me when I ask her to do something. It’s really not attractive. She also told me one night that she wanted to go live with her Daddy and GF (I really hated the moniker “Bambi” for her so I’ll just call her GF from now on) and only visit me sometimes. I was very close to making that happen.

But we are home. She is with her dad. My house is quiet, slightly tidier than it was three hours ago, and I have sushi on the way. I’m catching up on all the TV I missed this week. I am looking forward to a night of sleep without a wee pair of feet wedged up under my ribs.

Back to real life on Monday.

I’m thinking of getting a new car.

I love my Explorer, I really do. It’s my second one, and this one looks practically identical to the last one. The only differences are just that its features are about four years more advanced.

But lately I’ve just been feeling like it’s a lot more car than I NEED. The one thing I always love about having the cargo space is when I take Robbie places. I can put his crate back there and he can ride safely, whether it’s just a trip to the vet or a long ride to my parents’ house in Dallas. It seems a bit silly to have all that car you don’t really need just for your dog.

I am not having financial trouble but I do realize that my situation could be pretty different in about 18 months, and maybe I should be trimming expenses now. I could very easily go back to a car now that I don’t haul a crap-ton of baby/toddler gear. Robbie could ride in the backseat just like dogs all over the world do.

It also is becoming more important to me to get better gas mileage. Not just for my own financial reasons (although I did just spend $60 to fill up a 19 gallon gas tank – ouch!) but also for the environment. All this is adding up to the fact that I should downsize.

I spent a good deal of time researching this, and sadly it turns out that I am upside down in my truck. Worst case scenario (depending on which website you trust to find the trade-in value), I would owe a chunk of money on my truck, which could be rolled into the financing of the new car, but then I doubt I would wind up with a smaller car payment. And a smaller payment is the goal.

So in the end, I don’t know what I’ll do. Next week I’ll go meet with the car guy at the dealership that currently has the car I want. I’ll test drive and it and let him run the numbers. I won’t do it if my car payment isn’t lower than it is now. My dad is going to help me. Most of me is grateful to have his help. A tiny part of me is ashamed of myself that I want and need a man to help me in this process. I feel like I should turn in my feminist card for even asking for his help. But logic says when you have a good resource to help you with something you don’t have experience with, you take advantage of it. The feminists don’t need to know I had my dad help me.

At what age do kids want to hear chapter books read aloud to them? I realize this is a random question.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things about school was having the teacher read chapter books to us. I loved hearing one chapter a day, sitting in a circle on the floor. I would often think about what we’d read that day and what was going to happen the next day. I remember hearing some of my favorite books that way.

I know every kid is different and there is no formula for it. No one can tell me that at age XYZ Bridget will be ready for it and enjoy it. I did a little research and found some moms recommend the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, specifically the first one – Little House in the Big Woods – as a good chapter book for kids her age. I bought it and she let me read her part of the first chapter today.

To my horror, there was talk of wolves eating little girls and killing deer and eating the meat. Luckily she wasn’t too interested and wanted to stop reading it.

Now, I realize that these are facts of life and nothing terrible in the grand scheme of things. But she’s four. First of all, she has not yet made the connection between “the chicken says bawk bawk” and the chicken on her plate, and the longer I can hold that off the better, because I’m sure she’ll go on a meat strike for a while when she learns that lesson. And secondly, she’s hitting that stage where she’s afraid of everything just to say she’s afraid and to stall bedtime. I don’t want to add wolves to the mix. I’m really a fan of keeping them innocent as long as possible because it goes downhill pretty quickly once they realize the world isn’t always a nice safe place.

Any recommendations out there for chapter books that are fairly innocent and won’t scare her? Or should I just put this idea on hold for a year or two?

There is a new kid in our condo complex. She’s a neat kid, really. She’s smart and funny and she’s really sweet to Bridget. And it’s obvious that she’s desperate for kids to play with. We met her on Tuesday when Bridget and I were out in the driveway drawing with chalk and blowing bubbles.

Her mom came over to meet me, since her kid was playing in my driveway, which I thought was absolutely respectable. But within minutes of meeting me, she offered to let Bridget come down and play at their house anytime I needed to work (I had mentioned that I work from home). I don’t know if she meant that I could pay her for babysitting or not. I do know that they are staying with a friend while the mom looks for a job and then they will move into a place of their own. I don’t know what the story is with the dad.

Both yesterday and today the girl – let’s just call her Annie – came over to play with Bridget. And it’s giving me anxiety.

First, Annie is eight. That’s four years older than Bridget. And while she’s a cool kid, she doesn’t really play the way a four year old plays. They really don’t understand each other. So far she’s been really sweet with Bridget but you can see it’s frustrating for her to play with a four year old. I totally get that. Sometimes it makes me want to gouge my own eyes out.

She also keeps asking if Bridget can go over and play at her house, and assures me that her mom said it was ok. But I’m not comfortable with that. I don’t know if the invitation includes me, and since I don’t know these people, I’m sure as hell not going to send my four year old over by herself. So I said that I really wanted Bridget to stay outside to play in the sunshine and burn off energy, which was partially true – I needed her to burn off some energy in a bad way.

I know I could probably invite Annie in to play at our house, but that makes me wary too. I know that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, but what if they are whack jobs and I get accused of something? There is something about this family that just makes me…. suspicious. And I certainly know nothing about the roommate they are living with. I just kind of feel like I don’t want to be too closely involved. That could just be my over protective Mama Bear instinct, but something is raising my hackles.

I’m happy to let them play together outside because I’ll be there. But I’m going to start running out of excuses soon as to why Bridget can’t go over and play inside. I’m sure that Annie’s mom, if she’s truly not a whack job, understands why I’m hesitant. And if she doesn’t understand, then she’s not the kind of parent I’d trust around my kid. But am I going overboard? Am I being too protective? Is there such a thing?