27 August 2008

your metaphor is digging into my cankles

have you seen that commercial? that old lady cracks me up. i don't really care about the wireless printer so much (as i sit here with a 35-foot ethernet cable draped across the entertainment center and the doggie kennels and the floor, up to the sofa where i blog) but the old lady in the commercial is hil-freakin-arious, folks.

it's some funny stuff.

my hands smelled like hot dogs all day and i couldn't figure out why. it was a long-ass day today at work; time couldn't go fast enough for me. i can tell you it wasn't much of a day for working - i finished two crossword puzzles and three sudokus while harassing the non-bill-paying bastards that are my customers.

"hi, is mrs. fill-in-the-blank there? hi, this is superjanel from giant conglomerate bank and i'm calling in regards to your -- hey, i think 28-down is "THE UN!" which, if you were completing the ny times crossword today, 28-down really was "the UN" - the clue being a n.y. country club.

tricky, tricky.

so since i've been home i've been watching the weather channel and all the coverage that tropical storm gustav brings with it. i made tuna casserole for dinner and ate broccoli and cauliflower and drank about a pitcher and a half of ice tea, i'm so very thirsty today. i cleaned house, did laundry, walked the pooties until they were tired (which is a long freaking haul, my friends) - it's been a productive evening. and that's how exciting my life has been today - how about yours?

i'm working my way towards a loooong weekend and generally i look forward to not working but the bee and i have turned a relaxing camping trip into a giant freaking circus production, much like we do with just about anything. first off, you have to realize that i haven't been camping in about 16 years. that's not a joke. the last time i went camping was with my entire family, before my parents split up and life got weird, each of us kids got to pick out our own cans of shasta soda (which was available in about 73 different flavors) and i wasn't afraid of large bodies of water or the shit that swims/floats/rots in it.

i can't say that those are my favorite memories - i was a snotty, bratty, shithead of a kid and i thought i was too good for all that jazz - but at least i can look back at them now and laugh.

ha.

so anyway. we're planning a camping trip. it started out as me and the bee and the puddies. then it was me and the bee and the puddies and his sister on saturday night. then it was me and the bee and the puddies and his sister and my brothers and my brother's girlfriend. now add about (what seems like) 12 belligerent alcoholic 23-year-old jack off guys - friends of the bee. to me, this sounds like a recipe for getting kicked out of a campground and/or arrested. to him, it's a raging good time and what camping is all about.

um, i think i'd rather get kicked out of an applebee's and call it good. let's take the tent back and just go eat dinner.

but it's not to be. instead i'll spend my holiday surrounded by assholes (i'm surrounded by assholes!) and eating hot dogs and sweating. a lot. (i didn't mean you, steph. you're not an asshole.)

good times.

oh well. at least i'll have the puddies.

i rented movies last night and haven't watched a one of them. i usually love scary/freaky/gory movies (what can i say, they've grown on me) and so i rented a couple weirdo looking ones. but i have to say, when i'm home alone, those things are far less funny and far more frightening. now obviously, i'm 28 and i'm old enough to know there's not a monster under my bed. BUT... as previously mentioned, i'm going camping this weekend and who's to say there's not crazy perverted psychopaths in the woods with machetes and axes, waiting to cut off my arms and legs and leave me flopping and squirting blood in the woods in the middle of the night? i mean, i'll be the chubby girl there - they always get clobbered first in the movies.

diet pills, stat! and some good running shoes, i won't be one of those biz-natches that's running around in the great outdoors in 8-inch hooker heels.

(ain't that a pretty picture?)

and why am i all alone, you may be asking? (and if you're not, too bad.) the bee is back on the road in waterloo - doing manly jobs and getting dirty and working long hours. when jobs like this come about i'm glad he doesn't have time to come home. he gets tired and whiny and jackassy and it's probably a good thing that there's 130 miles in between us - there's only room for one tired, whiny and jackassy baby in the house and i (as the elder and the girl) take priority.

neener, neener, neener...

i'm putting the puddies in their houses and going to bed. i'm pooped. peas out.

22 August 2008

my angel

i'm not going to be sad today.

okay, that's a lie. i can't help but be sad today. if things had gone the way i wanted, today would have been my due date. in my mind, today's the day my life would have changed forever. a friend told me that this week is a major hurdle in healing and i know she's right - i've been carrying this weight around since february. maybe now i can begin to let it go.

i hurt every day for the might have beens, the should have beens and the what ifs. my heart hurts every day for that one little person that i don't get to meet. that one amazing little person i'll never get to hold, i'll never get to comfort when he cries, i'll never get to see him smile.

but that doesn't mean i can't - or don't - love him with all that i have.

the day i found out i was pregnant - i cried. i cried because i was scared that i wouldn't be able to support a child - i was scared that i wouldn't be good enough, that i wouldn't be able to give him what he needed, that my patience would be too short, that i wouldn't know what to do. but the moment i learned i was with a child, my entire point of view changed. i learned that it's not all about me anymore - i learned that i could love deeper than i'd ever loved anyone or anything before. and furthermore, i wanted to give every ounce of energy, time, every little piece of me to making sure my baby's life was fulfilling. i'd never felt that sort of unselfishness toward another person before.

that was the most amazing feeling in the world.

when i first saw him on the ultrasound, i was amazed. he looked perfect. he was beautiful. that was the happiest day of my life - i couldn't breathe, i couldn't speak - i was just in awe of this incredible little person inside of me. i felt like a mother that day and i couldn't wait to meet my child. i felt like i'd finally found my purpose - it all just felt right.

but it just wasn't meant to be. none of it was meant to be. life would not have been liveable for my child and i couldn't continue just for my own selfish reasons, no matter how much i wanted to. my baby was sick - he wouldn't have survived - and i couldn't put him through the pain and suffering. i did what i had to do and while i regret that decision every single day - i hate myself for that decision - i hate that i had to make such a decision - deep down, i know it was the right thing, the only thing, that could be done.

and so it was. it was hard. it was so, so hard. and it continues to be hard. i have good days and i have terrible days. sometimes i can smile and sometimes i just cry. i miss that person, i miss that feeling in ways i can't even begin to describe. i feel like i was robbed, like a part of me was stolen and there is no way to recover it. i try to console myself with the knowledge that he's up there, he's waiting for me, and someday, i'll get to see him. someday i will get to meet that amazing little person that changed my life and my outlook in ways i never imagined.

i find consolation in the fact that i gave him back to God before he could suffer, before he had experienced pain but not before he knew love.

and so today i'm having a small ceremony of sorts. my momma and i are releasing balloons near the river today in celebration of the life that changed mine. i'm hoping that releasing balloons to the sky will release some of the guilt i feel about the entire situation. i know it's just a day - and technically, it's no different than yesterday was or tomorrow will be - but it's the day. and i can't just let it pass. so let the release escort out the remorse and the negativity and usher in a welcoming of a new page, an ongoing life and the remembrance of a child. an amazing, beautiful child that i will always love and always remember.

so today i am a little sad. and that's okay. because i'm healing. i'm recovering. i'm shedding the blame that i've shouldered and i'm appreciating the person that changed my life forever.

i'm going to be okay.

19 August 2008

nothing good happens after midnight.

it's past my bedtime but i can't sleep. my day at work sucked - my attention span is nil. not to mention i have the headache from hell (and have had all day) and i have 47 people wanting me to do 47 different things when all i want to do is sit down and cry. scream, even. and when i'm done with all that, i'd just like to try to find my focus.

i'm stressed about the bee and things completely out of my control. i don't even really want to talk about it except to say that the closer i get the more he pushes me away. and then i feel like the idiot for putting myself out there in the first place.

two little steps forward, fourteen giant steps back. all in the name of love, right?

whatever.

everybody gets a free pass. some people even get two. but when is the time to draw the line? when is the time to step back and reevaluate, to figure out what's healthy for me and what's not?

i keep finding myself coming back to this internal argument i've been having for years - distinguishing love from comfort and want from need.

the words are the same; only the faces are changing.

i don't know. the more i think i know, the more i get my ass kicked for being presumptuous. i do believe it's time to fold and admit that in the grand scheme of life, i know nothing. and everything i thought i knew probably isn't right.

i'm taking my negative attitude and going to bed. or at least trying to sleep. i'll try to make better choices tomorrow.

08 August 2008

no more milk cartons

i forgot to tell you.

i found my punctuation.

there's a chance that it was never missing in the first place.

whatever. all is now well in *that* department.

productivity is for pussies.

i have to admit, i nearly skipped work today. it's a stupid day to work anyway - a five hour shift starting at 5pm - wtf? and it would have been just as easy to call in - a fake cough here, a little sniffle there generally does the trick. or my personal favorite, the mysterious, "i can't come in" and then hang up. then i have more time to come up with something important/weird/life altering to excuse my absence.

can you tell i've done this a lot in the past? i am the queen of missing work. not that great a title, i realize, but we all have to be good at something, right? i just happen to be good at doing nothing, during which i come up more excuses to keep me idle, so really while i'm doing "nothing" i'm really doing "something" even though it's not particularly productive.

did you get that?

so anyway. i'm at work. i'm actually working - no, for real. they (they being "the man" that looks over my shoulder at my place of work) can't complain that i have not been completing my job duties. because i am rocking this joint this evening. i just happen to be rocking this joint while also doing things that don't really pertain to work: texting, blogging, playing games online. it's a rough life i lead...

boo-yah.

i have noticed a trend, and this makes me laugh. when i come to work crabby - i'm better at my job. i'm more argumentative and more likely to harass people into giving me money. which sort of makes sense but then when i leave here, after being crabby all day and crabbing and arguing with customers - then i go home and be crabby too. and *that* sort of defeats the purpose of the whole work as therapy theory.

whatever.

so my new phone is wonderful. i adore it. the battery doesn't last very long but i can deal. the really great thing is the texting: based on the words that i put in - my phone tries to complete my thoughts and my sentences. like, my phone guessed the word "retarded," which was awesome. but then when i put in "we shouldn't ..." it suggested "drink" when i really was thinking "argue." does my phone think i have a drinking problem? i've never lost it in platteville, dropped it in a toilet or subject it to any of the abuse that i've made other phones suffer on my nights out. this phone is a big whiny sucky baby.

wahh, wahh, wahh...

ugh. i have to pee. i never have to pee as much as i do when i'm at work. only at work do i have to pee every thirty minutes. everywhere else i can hold it like a camel. for real. and at work, i'm really weird about this - but i can't use the first two stalls. i think i watched a 60 minutes or something when i was like 7 years old that said that the first two stalls are the germiest everywhere you go. so i use the third stall. every time. or i don't go.

which is funny, because i'm sure everyone that watched that also avoids the first and second stall and so now we're all using the first stall and now it's the germiest and grimiest of the bunch. but whatever. i chalk it up to my ocd. and that makes me feel better.

i'm going to go pee now.

pee's out.

04 August 2008

corey feldman, pootie beds and missing punctuation, oh my.

i've mentioned before that we're big blockbuster users. all hail the blue and gold logo that causes us to open our wallets and our homes to so many awful, horrible films. conservatively, i'd guess that i enjoy about 3.7256 movies we rent out of every 10.

why so few, you ask? because i'm only half of the movie-renting-population in this apartment and the other 50 percent of the population has terrible taste in movies. (and television and food and lots of things, but for right now, we're only talking about movies.) movies like b-grade slasher films and self-produced bounty hunter films.

my horizons have certainly been expanded, but not in any way that i'd want to discuss in front of people.

would you like an example? right now - literally - right now, we're watching "the lost boys: the tribe". it's the anxiously-awaited sequel (that was sarcasm) to the 1987 vampire classic (that was not sarcasm, i love that movie) "the lost boys". the only common denominator between the two (beyond the setting, the cinematography, the theme song, blah, blah, blah) is corey feldman.

now i don't know how much tv you watch, i watch more than the recommended daily allowance, but corey feldman can be found on the internet (or encyclopedia britannica if you're old school, and i'm down with that) under all. washed. up. i've watched bits and pieces of that show on a&e "the two coreys" and i've seen firsthand, from my sofa, that dude is at the end of his career.

official janel rating: three thumbs way down. way, way down. like, down, on the floor, down. (btw, the janel does *not* have three thumbs, she's borrowing the thumb of the bee, sitting next to her because this movie is that bad. for real.)

moving on.

so last week i went to lunch with my dad. not that exciting, we talked about same ol' boring stuff: his farm, the barn, the weather, his knack for spending money he doesn't have (I TOLD YOU PEOPLE IT WAS GENETIC!). and then we went to costco. where, in his constant attempts to purchase forgiveness for not being around for the majority of my teenage years, he bought me a giant bed for the pooties.

no, really, giant. big mc large HUGE. it's like 36 inches by 42 inches or something like that. i'd get you the exact measurements but the pooties ate the tag. and that right there is the point of this blurb. it's a nice, comfy, well-upholstered rectangle of a doggie bed and the only thing they're interested in doing is eating the "do not remove" tag and the zippers.

they won't lay on it, they'll only lay beside it. especially kingsley, because the first time that he did stand on it, buddha decided he wanted to move the bed from one end of the living room to the other and kingsley got a nice ride. (funny to watch, not so funny for the pootie, i'm sure.)

good times. it's just that much more crap on the floor that i get to clean up every day.

woot.

and finally: missing punctuation. you may or may not know what that means, and if you don't, well, you should try harder to keep up. no new developments - nothing. nada. zip. zilch. zero. and it's not like i could have missed it - or misplaced it. i have the kind of punctuation that you know when you're having it. and i haven't had it. i'm frustrated. and i can't get into the doctor for a few more days.

ugh.

stupid back-to-schoolers having all their stupid back-to-school physicals. don't they know they're dicking up my schedule?

there are things i need to KNOW, man. your vaccinations can wait.

and on that note, i'm going to go watch stupid movie number two, "the bank job." however, this movie employs the talent of one jason statham, who i will never tire of listening to or watching.

*sigh*

peas out, ninjas.