tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71982457863847144302024-03-14T05:48:14.420-04:00Gwen Alison WonderlandGwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.comBlogger194125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-16082357260060140122011-02-04T18:59:00.007-05:002011-02-04T19:08:30.601-05:00Not DeadI recently received an email from a reader asking if I were still alive. "Alive" being a relative term, in my opinion, I'm not really sure how to answer that. In any case, I'm not dead. Which is probably good, depending on who you ask.<br /><br />I just wanted all my readers (those that are still left anyway) to know that I'm contemplating starting a private blog. Anyone who is interested in having access to it please send me an email.<br /><br />For now I will leave you with some pictures of the neediest creatures on earth, also known as "the only things keeping me alive". Enjoy.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibeL3ONrigb67sXAbHju2pF5FY34EkjgFxLFnODvF4J-Jqlk7e1laMweVzZ7UNfFjn3HN7wuYkhLEb1sEJtZ6QFEqhsmS7VB6fbu9xgoW4MmN9D1upNVH8uinpSj1fMbYDInsz7NUf_Zkb/s1600/brodybronwyn.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibeL3ONrigb67sXAbHju2pF5FY34EkjgFxLFnODvF4J-Jqlk7e1laMweVzZ7UNfFjn3HN7wuYkhLEb1sEJtZ6QFEqhsmS7VB6fbu9xgoW4MmN9D1upNVH8uinpSj1fMbYDInsz7NUf_Zkb/s320/brodybronwyn.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569990324744343042" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXI7JPO3Wh5u7WegVnUx3cBY3bnjswfL0cBHzHnt8rOUbg4SbgUrLd_LAJQvsry9UafZFf3LAIe5MnQLIY_aY0muku7_CAtqZVfU1rsjRdVBijTuKA5hvwrz-jSMBje6HKncZCK07q1sqK/s1600/oliviaagainstwall.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 304px; height: 201px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXI7JPO3Wh5u7WegVnUx3cBY3bnjswfL0cBHzHnt8rOUbg4SbgUrLd_LAJQvsry9UafZFf3LAIe5MnQLIY_aY0muku7_CAtqZVfU1rsjRdVBijTuKA5hvwrz-jSMBje6HKncZCK07q1sqK/s320/oliviaagainstwall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569990446869451954" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv4KRZF6PJIlM0cJ7WaPT6fQGLf_ZU8HCkMWsW86wIXfXSIKv9EojTrSPDlOpdy7SLx9e-m_ZZuA5Djh7zXLashyphenhyphenmSi_dDv1EQCibsLEB0_yTcSPupLXmomEPuUHIlfXExDlFjQh1UlI30/s1600/allthekids.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv4KRZF6PJIlM0cJ7WaPT6fQGLf_ZU8HCkMWsW86wIXfXSIKv9EojTrSPDlOpdy7SLx9e-m_ZZuA5Djh7zXLashyphenhyphenmSi_dDv1EQCibsLEB0_yTcSPupLXmomEPuUHIlfXExDlFjQh1UlI30/s320/allthekids.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569990193729352306" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZTusZnON5D8EiraFxM4BJTlw_R8temzpWiE-jbN-hdB6Q4nG4O1VrHZzRoRcr0Ku2JQZrpn0iaVhMdPq6qPVvwj1jbJhjg3qt_gU57g3sVDF74CTVZ1-EdhASm7WUoNoBH5Gqdac-g_jo/s1600/brodybigsmile.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 162px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZTusZnON5D8EiraFxM4BJTlw_R8temzpWiE-jbN-hdB6Q4nG4O1VrHZzRoRcr0Ku2JQZrpn0iaVhMdPq6qPVvwj1jbJhjg3qt_gU57g3sVDF74CTVZ1-EdhASm7WUoNoBH5Gqdac-g_jo/s320/brodybigsmile.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569989984997863634" border="0" /></a>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-87927458250857688692010-06-14T14:20:00.004-04:002010-06-14T14:37:34.045-04:00If You Lived Here, You'd Be Dead Now<span style="font-weight: bold;">The babies lay sprawled on the ottoman as I go back and forth between them, kissing their bellies, trying to elicit laughter. Bronwyn's buying what I'm selling but Brody is having none of it. Big, liquid eyes full of confusion gaze up at me. "What the fuck are you doing, ma?" I can almost hear the words coming out of his mouth. I have no idea.<br /><br />Todd comes in from his cigarette with a goofy smile. "Haaaappyyyy Birthday" he sing-songs and I'm a little thrown. Holy shit, it's my birthday and I didn't remember. I mean, I knew it was coming for days because people saw fit to remind me of it by way of Starbucks gift cards, wine, and sweet, sweet cold hard cash. But it's like I don't care at all about it. I'm 35. I am a year older than my big sister. I've got diapers to change, mouths to feed, wash to fold, and a dress rehearsal to attend where I will witness my daughter perform a rousing tap dance to the tune of "Hounddog". I'm going through the motions of my life, the way I have for the past 35 years. Trust me when I tell you that merely participating in my life is not the same thing as joyfully living it.<br /><br />Lately, I've been doing strange things to my fingernails and toenails. I'm not biting or grooming my nails, I'm like attacking them systematically. It started out as nervous picking at the base and has now graduated to active and purposeful infliction of injury. This is my fucking spare time project. I even have tools for this activity. My thumbs in particular are raw and bleeding. And my toes are so bad that it's painful to walk.<br /><br />I have a familiar feeling bubbling up again: revulsion. The desire to crawl out of my own skin. I am a snake shedding an old, scaly coat. A skinned rabbit hanging from a tree.<br /><br />Am I unhappy? Decidedly not. I've said on this blog quite sincerely that my mind is amazingly empty of negative, depressive or suicidal thoughts. But that's just it - my mind is amazingly empty. There is a vapid numbness to my thought processes. I'm devoid of humor - even that dark and vicious humor that sustained me all those years in that virtual hell of my own making. The absence of sadness is not the same thing as being happy. It's like the way you're so grateful for the numbness that novacaine brings to avoid unspeakable agony, but when that numbness lingers and lingers and lingers - well that...that's just a different kind of pain.<br /><br />Last year at this time, I was sinking into quicksands of madness and despair. When insanity knocked, I answered the door. I invited him in for coffee. And then I hit him over the head with a vase and stole his identity. It's easier to say, "I'm crazy" than to take responsibility for my failures as a human being, to admit that my 35 years have been a series of mistakes and wrong turns and, mostly, of standing still. When you look in the mirror and still don't know who you are looking at and you haven't the foggiest idea of what you believe in, throwing on a cloak of crazy can be pretty appealing. The problem is that once you do that, once you try that thing on and like how it fits you have to really commit. It's a cause you have to be willing to die for.<br /><br />I'm not saying it's always a choice. But to a certain extent, for people like me, it is. Once I have the tools to combat irrational thoughts and ridiculous feelings, I can choose to use those tools or I can put them away and pretend that they don't exist. I can wallow in the perpetual grief I experience for the loss of my sister. I can feel sorry for myself that I had to sacrifice my breasts for a life I'm not even sure that I want to live. I can be angry for losing my childhood and young adulthood to a cult, a belief system that tortured and controlled me. Or I can try to feel...something else. Maybe it's merely a delusion that there are other options for someone like me, a person so very paralyzed by fear and possibility that I build a wall all around me and then despair that I am lonely.<br /><br />I think back to last year and I realize that my desire to die was very real. I reached a crossroads and pretended to make a choice. I said, "Gwen, either you will go into that wall at full speed or you will embrace life." What better way to embrace life then to have a baby? But put in that perspective those choices became one and the same. For me, I think that having a baby was just a very clever way to die. What is more life murdering than this - this thing that I am doing here? All day long, a zombie performing rote tasks in the service of others. Two babies and a toddler- a perfect excuse for getting out of doing anything real at all. I am a ghost of a person, a skinned corpse hanging on a meat hook in an industrial freezer. It's sad, really, because I know that something living once hummed inside of me, this huddled wraith who doesn't even bother to crouch in dark corners. But that little heartbeat is gone now, a distant thud. There is only the shell, a person all hollowed out and sleep deprived. I love my children with all my heart - blue eyed, smile faced cherubs - but they have killed me. No...no, I did that. That's the thing with suicide. You have to do it yourself.<br /><br /></span>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-48883035511565840172010-05-05T16:58:00.004-04:002010-05-05T17:09:34.734-04:00Mi Hijo en el SombreroSo Liv made this at school today:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn5WdPBZwCAOStGLr-H0db_MsVIapLDzYTPoRpORjBMJXw7avdcAficdoHw3JF6OAys60JsDfpGINNuV0-oOzzSc5OwWc5hov8BAsQPovdX8pgyJm-fnVM-P60J0RdpXB3FpQhWL_BdVOn/s1600/sombrero.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn5WdPBZwCAOStGLr-H0db_MsVIapLDzYTPoRpORjBMJXw7avdcAficdoHw3JF6OAys60JsDfpGINNuV0-oOzzSc5OwWc5hov8BAsQPovdX8pgyJm-fnVM-P60J0RdpXB3FpQhWL_BdVOn/s320/sombrero.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467893405973768530" border="0" /></a><br />And I couldn't resist doing this:<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn5WdPBZwCAOStGLr-H0db_MsVIapLDzYTPoRpORjBMJXw7avdcAficdoHw3JF6OAys60JsDfpGINNuV0-oOzzSc5OwWc5hov8BAsQPovdX8pgyJm-fnVM-P60J0RdpXB3FpQhWL_BdVOn/s1600/sombrero.jpg"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3PYwDxV-OEW_WgD2_wIv9beHSVVJOQecS2H2iGgbpb9Ax_7DzTGrccJu64jgDucehpi6JdVtbUlSxZOdC8KvArAeWgSdIbS3Q3Z2ePvygJe7ewmiKznRx9UOJtfIbXJYwensLSD7-0HMF/s1600/brodyinsombrero.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3PYwDxV-OEW_WgD2_wIv9beHSVVJOQecS2H2iGgbpb9Ax_7DzTGrccJu64jgDucehpi6JdVtbUlSxZOdC8KvArAeWgSdIbS3Q3Z2ePvygJe7ewmiKznRx9UOJtfIbXJYwensLSD7-0HMF/s320/brodyinsombrero.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467893857997758114" border="0" /></a><br />Happy Cinco de Mayo to all those who celebrate it and to all those who just use it as an excuse to overindulge in tacos and get shit-faced drinking Tequila!Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-76310115072224449552010-05-03T21:16:00.003-04:002010-05-03T21:53:48.088-04:00The Death of a BlogMy blog didn't just die. I think it was murdered. I was there, in the moment, composing in my head, scribbling ideas on restaurant napkins, looking at the world through a twisty lens, crossing my fingers for strange events and other blog fodder. I was a blogger, not big time, but I had readers - really awesome readers who thought about what I wrote and cared about what happened to me, what upset me, what woke me up in the night. <br /><br />But something stabbed the heart of me. I found myself abandoning this thing, this glorious thing that had become so precious to me. Something broke inside of me and I could not go on.<br /><br />Wait. That's kind of a lie. Presently, I'm more fixed than I've ever been. My emotions and thought processes are all spackled and glued and scotch taped up. It not a neat result but a functional one. If my life were a movie and I rewound it a year, I would be standing on the balcony of a tall building looking longingly at the pavement below. I would be holding a bottle of painkillers in my hand and wondering how they would feel going into my belly all at once. I would be driving my car, staring down at my hands and waiting expectantly for the hard turn into oncoming traffic. I wanted to die something awful. It was all my little brain could think about. The end of Gwen. The end of me.<br /><br />There is a vicious pattern to my mind. It takes me to really gross places at intervals. Like this bubbling up of self-hatred. It makes me want to hurt myself in the sickest ways. I've given up on trying to figure out why it comes. I only know that it does. <br /><br />But not lately. Not today. <br /><br />This is the problem. It seems I only have the ability to write beautifully when my soul is in a hideous condition. There exists in me a strange mating of creativity and misery.<br /><br />I wonder if I have anything worthwhile to say while I am well. If anyone would care to know that part of me. <br /><br />I know the sickness will return. It is a very reliable visitor and arrives in many forms. But for now I am all OK and boring as hell.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-18439838772164197472010-04-25T19:55:00.006-04:002010-04-27T15:26:41.336-04:00Float like a Butterly, Sting like a BeeThis is what happens when you misbehave in the Jackson house:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg53U92wdmFnLE2rq0Nf0GMm63ge9j9DRbdqsFfTWnVxRMmeUspvWeXj0fxByNJ7j3CsgDEkLhVZ5oCXJpdxOMKn4fT-ApWC3T2_RZeYaOIo2G9TTsOy64vBBOZjM5XBeY1ec8qhwCwBycl/s1600/Livbruisedeye.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg53U92wdmFnLE2rq0Nf0GMm63ge9j9DRbdqsFfTWnVxRMmeUspvWeXj0fxByNJ7j3CsgDEkLhVZ5oCXJpdxOMKn4fT-ApWC3T2_RZeYaOIo2G9TTsOy64vBBOZjM5XBeY1ec8qhwCwBycl/s320/Livbruisedeye.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464899035831328226" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HmhpiOYoPLf5PpUIpfysqUlPcDhZ2nWyEf9FilkaCkTd564t2ePTQrTOMsIc-xbCv2nvh27nbSsNxUbHEv5xLZWNyf0lGCXRMSRh_M8nyKHIE9r3cvmXtlQvrXy8PgpMVeJbnJjdpaP9/s1600/Livprettywithbruisedeye.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0HmhpiOYoPLf5PpUIpfysqUlPcDhZ2nWyEf9FilkaCkTd564t2ePTQrTOMsIc-xbCv2nvh27nbSsNxUbHEv5xLZWNyf0lGCXRMSRh_M8nyKHIE9r3cvmXtlQvrXy8PgpMVeJbnJjdpaP9/s320/Livprettywithbruisedeye.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464899770632698834" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipLGXFrDmo4wA9TI81ca_QxH0fU1R4VzQSYrWQkWgkwFcZ0KKuOaiQnxwhVhE3h6Mc_8gBp2mDWxIOtqHZ1gf9mS1t0k8u1HObWiRI_iGJ8H1S-SHyp4B-UcRoSyb5J6s4iL1O9Hn85ge9/s1600/livtotallyemo.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipLGXFrDmo4wA9TI81ca_QxH0fU1R4VzQSYrWQkWgkwFcZ0KKuOaiQnxwhVhE3h6Mc_8gBp2mDWxIOtqHZ1gf9mS1t0k8u1HObWiRI_iGJ8H1S-SHyp4B-UcRoSyb5J6s4iL1O9Hn85ge9/s320/livtotallyemo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464899306682832242" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Ok, not really. But what you see over my daughter's eye is not purple eyeshadow applied in a game of "Let's pretend I'm an Atlantic City hooker." It's a genuine, bona fide shiner. Some child didn't bother to look before coming down the slide and slamming her fucking foot into my daughter's beautiful eye. A playground is a dangerous place and apparently rife with miniature assholes. If anyone tries to mess with my girl again, they'll have this to contend with:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kmLmiYiHdLaNk9toW7aflPu7QTsboB-HRbXUPWC7Cewy52GsOeflxagWpPaigi4IY2LLdFDGLhpI_AH2bhRtwAV41Ziw_l2kv-M6MUFJrzcOCghL2cvTxz6-eFdipj-DsjU2E4ci-Vgg/s1600/Liv-boxing.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kmLmiYiHdLaNk9toW7aflPu7QTsboB-HRbXUPWC7Cewy52GsOeflxagWpPaigi4IY2LLdFDGLhpI_AH2bhRtwAV41Ziw_l2kv-M6MUFJrzcOCghL2cvTxz6-eFdipj-DsjU2E4ci-Vgg/s320/Liv-boxing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464900506481503842" border="0" /></a>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-82237001236404871592010-04-22T15:01:00.007-04:002010-04-22T21:19:38.087-04:00Devil in a Blue OnesieThis life is a whirl of soiled diapers, milk stained bottles in the sink, Desitin smeared on tiny asses that are too cute for words. But mostly this life is swollen with desperation born of post partum misery and exhaustion.<br /><br />Behold the face of a torturer -<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufbX_gSOPHg_r4tX1MIzh2WQIaVwufC9ZfjjHNJ-YXQWXQnFC1bWnhU9IEqfmcvX_UVdQmedWEzpoqpQ6eYMsJtxUHA7Ym3fl0WXTfEAw13cMn3tD3x-n8F1-X-XV7l4utPAH89kMIEBM/s1600/brodyatnight.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiufbX_gSOPHg_r4tX1MIzh2WQIaVwufC9ZfjjHNJ-YXQWXQnFC1bWnhU9IEqfmcvX_UVdQmedWEzpoqpQ6eYMsJtxUHA7Ym3fl0WXTfEAw13cMn3tD3x-n8F1-X-XV7l4utPAH89kMIEBM/s320/brodyatnight.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5463042120246772642" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />This photo was taken at 3 am. Gaze into his magnetic eyes - but not for too long. He is a wolf in cute baby's clothing, a charlatan selling torment and crippling lethargy in the guise of coos and helplessness. Here is his accomplice:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzcHVEPaDvingmBlCPPHJ3iA0gV7phDVblwvyeQ8z_PNTHoKZY4QkBQPYNMskyIl72M4BRPyttMqsmWI4Cj0vwh6o-XgwE_Z63DB_38_w0vdyFZ6s2NlbYzBQAI5qf0mM3UW7BHMTv3rds/s1600/bronwyninbow.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzcHVEPaDvingmBlCPPHJ3iA0gV7phDVblwvyeQ8z_PNTHoKZY4QkBQPYNMskyIl72M4BRPyttMqsmWI4Cj0vwh6o-XgwE_Z63DB_38_w0vdyFZ6s2NlbYzBQAI5qf0mM3UW7BHMTv3rds/s320/bronwyninbow.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5463069032748933042" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cute bow? Check. Precious baby pout? Yep. Beady, piercing eyes? You betcha. Bronwyn is the biggest bitch to ever don footed pajamas. She plots and schemes from her lair, otherwise known as the comfy swing. My babies chain-suck binkies instead of Parliaments and wail like banshees when they don't get their way. I am a prisoner of war. Their plaintive wails at 1:02 am, 2 am, 2:15 am, 2:45 am, 3:07 am, 3:55 am, 4:00 am, 4:10 am, 4:32 am, 4:40 am, and 5:15 am surely violate the Geneva Convention.<br /><br />I think Brody actually wrote "I will break you" on the nursery wall with his urine the other night. He will.<br /><br />Yesterday, I held Bronwyn up, pulled the waist of her red stretchy pants up to the chest of her blue onesie and made her dance like a marionette to the tune of "I can go, go, go in my Hover-round, this way, that way, all over town". This made me laugh maniacally, hysterically like a person driven mad by a peculiar brand of torment. The only way I can exact revenge is to make them look ridiculous.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-88812417465920329302010-03-16T19:57:00.005-04:002010-03-16T21:50:45.390-04:00God Help MeThe first time I heard the word "mommy-blogger" I instantly recognized it as derisive. I thought, "Who are these women who can't stop writing about their progeny? Who are these women who immerse themselves in the lives of toddlers and have subsequently lost their identity? These mommy-bloggers with only their children as blog fodder?" I pictured them as cookie cutter mothers, having nothing better to do but make lego castles and playdough pizzas. I felt instantly superior. Well, maybe not superior but..."otherly". It didn't occur to me that I actually was one, that I was a mommy-blogger - by virtue of being a mother and a blogger. Which is understandable considering that my first year of blogging I barely wrote about my child or the trials of motherhood. Liv was a ghost. I didn't write about being a mother or parenting issues or anything of that nature because my writing was a way to <span style="font-style: italic;">escape</span> that - to escape a reality that was foreign and overwhelming. Including that reality in my writing felt invasive.<br /><br />But I feel differently now. I stumbled upon some wonderful moms who are bloggers, (like <a href="http://prayingtodarwin.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/sometimes/">her</a> and <a href="http://formerlyfun.blogspot.com/2010/03/get-your-mouth-off-that.html">her</a> and <a href="http://www.afever.com/">her</a>), and some awesome dads who are bloggers, (like <a href="http://www.afreeman.org/2010/03/09/hes-the-hairy-hairy-gent-who-ran-amok-in-kent/"></a><a href="http://www.afreeman.org/2010/03/09/hes-the-hairy-hairy-gent-who-ran-amok-in-kent/">him</a> and <a href="http://talesfromthedadside.blogspot.com/2010/03/blink.html">him</a> and <a href="http://thecheekofgod.wordpress.com/">him</a>) who have taught me that writing about the challenges and joys of parenting can be interesting and funny and kind of amazing*. Is there any undertaking more daunting than raising up a baby to adulthood? Kids are strange little creatures that will make you laugh hearty laughs and cry salty tears and sometimes blow your fucking mind. There are a million different ways to be a parent and you don't have to sacrifice your soul in the process. I have three children now. And the truth is that right now I am immersed in motherhood; the kind of immersion that, 3 years ago, would have made my skin crawl. These three little people are the ocean in which I swim. Whether I drown or tread water remains to be seen.<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dx3nsWEZI2ucvfpSENTkKmWTY39LryA7ff4pA13KX8PpV8CIDF6aP0RdOWGfIg6jcTf73fLQqD1p3XbYQGJpg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><br /><br />*This is just a handful of the bloggers who have inspired me over the past year or so. There are so many more that I wish I could include!Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-21045623386336486222010-03-03T14:30:00.002-05:002010-03-03T14:37:58.563-05:00The Burning BagelI don't want to drone on indulgently about my brand new, fucking adorable babies. Well, actually I kind of do. It's not all kittens and rainbows here at the Jackson house, though, what with the sleepless nights and the grotesque, after-pregnancy body and my mother-in-law visiting from Florida. She is simultaneously saving my life and destroying it at the same time. We actually argued the other day about Nancy Kerrigan. <span style="font-style: italic;">Nancy</span> fucking <span style="font-style: italic;">Kerrigan</span>. She was insisting that that washed up hag was <span style="font-style: italic;">currently</span> competing in the Olympic Games. And <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> kept insisting that unless I inadvertently entered a time warp and was somehow unknowingly existing in 1992, I was pretty certain Nancy Kerrigan was not taking the ice in Vancouver in 2010. I had to actually go on the internet to convince her of my absolute rightness. How many times do I have to prove to this woman that I'm right before she understands that I am always and forever right? Apparently, I must do this to infinity.<br /><br />I am exhausted in this new reality in which 1 straight hour of sleep is an elusive luxury. But I am not too tired to champion the important causes, i.e. generic ketchup can't hold a candle to Heinz. Don't even try to bring that Walmart "great value" watery "catsup" shit home and tell me it's the same fucking thing as yummy, red, thick Heinz. Because post-partum depression means never having to say you're sorry for stabbing someone in the face for buying the wrong condiment. It also gives me automatic immunity from prosecution for burning a bagel, which is apparently now a capital offense. I watched incredulously as my mother-in-law leaned over the trashcan, sadly but with determination scraping the burnt black shit off the everything bagel I had just burned in the toaster oven. There was much sighing and mumbling under the breath about the "cost of things" until I finally asked why she wouldn't just let me throw the fucking thing away and make a new one. "Oh no", said the martyr, "I'll eat it. It won't taste <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> bad."<br /><br />And then today, <span style="font-style: italic;">she</span> is the one who commits this heinous criminal act. But since my mother-in-law is <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> post-partum and thus does not have immunity, she actually says, "Well I'm just going to have to punish myself by eating it." And I have to ask her to repeat herself because my ears cannot believe the nonsense she is spewing forth from her fucking mouth. "What on earth are you talking about, Tatty? Why would you have to punish yourself for burning a damn bagel? It's just bread?" And she says, "Weeeeell, if I punish myself and make myself eat the burnt bagel then maybe I won't burn one the next time I make lunch." And this is the part where I kind of lose my shit. "Ummm, it's just bread. It's BREAD. We do not live in a third world country ravaged by natural disaster where foodstuffs are scarce." She doesn't say anything but starts to put cream cheese on what is pretty much a lump of black ash. And she eats it, too, just to make a point.<br /><br />Isn't it amazing that I haven't replaced her Centrum Silver vitamins with cyanide capsules? Aren't you proud of me? She could be easily tricked, too. All I would have to say is that I bought these great vitamins at Walmart, that I got a <span style="font-style: italic;">deal</span>. She would be all over that shit.<br /><br />But I kid. I love my mother-in-law. She is very awesome when she is not being tight and judgmental and touting the economic value of low-watt light bulbs and reusing dryer sheets "2 and 3 times" or asking me to get my crockpot from storage every 5 seconds or telling Liv to calm down when all she is doing is dancing and laughing like, I don't know, a <span style="font-style: italic;">normal 4 year old</span>. In any case, she's changed a lot of shitty diapers for me. And do you want to know how she knows when the babies need to be changed? Not by sniffing around their asses for foul odors like normal people, but by actually<span style="font-style: italic;"> sticking her finger into the diaper</span>. Yet this same woman who has no problem putting her fingers in potentially shitty drawers says that aspirating boogers out the babies noses is "nasty" and would make her "dry heave".<br /><br />Does anybody know how long it takes to kill someone with undetectable levels of arsenic?Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-55975007664562598732010-02-20T11:47:00.009-05:002010-02-21T11:11:57.389-05:00Anti-DepressantsWith two screaming, pooping, milk-gobbling preemies at home keeping me awake 23 out of 24 hours a day, it is next to impossible to find time to write a meaningful, worthwhile blog. I'm still "upset about a lot of things" and mighty pissed off at the world. I still have a whole lot of shit I want to bitch and moan about on here to all you fine people. But until I'm no longer a zombie with formula stains on my stretched out comfie clothes and baby shit under my fingernails, cute pictures will have to suffice. Unless you all want to hear about how being a mother to twins is amazing and fucking awful at the same time or about how my 4 year old is still a total bitch or about how I still have a pregnant belly only now it's just not cute because there aren't any babies inside anymore. Because that's the extent of my inner monologue.<br /><br />You'll be happy to know that I'm staving off post-partum depression quite successfully with the aid of looking into the faces of my adorable babies. Here's a little sample of what makes it all worthwhile.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDAEjBPGwG5hqX2atLS7aFRO8amSn_0R5vGGrHE2ffr5jiC8Ye8IFtiHR6sa5hiNB8SZo3rFyZkSAFMa2-J3Jno7cnPvKLyqrt4_lqrY03-7CciiD2pvOMvEid3XX0iEEBzkzEm10OnUPI/s1600-h/lilahwithanalmostsmile.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDAEjBPGwG5hqX2atLS7aFRO8amSn_0R5vGGrHE2ffr5jiC8Ye8IFtiHR6sa5hiNB8SZo3rFyZkSAFMa2-J3Jno7cnPvKLyqrt4_lqrY03-7CciiD2pvOMvEid3XX0iEEBzkzEm10OnUPI/s320/lilahwithanalmostsmile.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440729207697369474" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-N59eBQqtvWpmEAhZMsFj88AiIMBSK2uEO1MML5hiq1OBtlU7X5kXFD_dqEz8MpkrCF5pYPyAOiTtzikjI2VEVzAQrqdFYNnHA22AbOf7PHEbAxQVDpNBXL0bqvGAvqK7QgeF65QLPdD/s1600-h/brodyonarm.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-N59eBQqtvWpmEAhZMsFj88AiIMBSK2uEO1MML5hiq1OBtlU7X5kXFD_dqEz8MpkrCF5pYPyAOiTtzikjI2VEVzAQrqdFYNnHA22AbOf7PHEbAxQVDpNBXL0bqvGAvqK7QgeF65QLPdD/s320/brodyonarm.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440729114460000946" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx2s6C3GEEe1YoSGOBKkOMtd1KhQah87pNmy2BM3iu3sbAYlXdhlJtMjguBzB3wzGx6vXwT5joperVcI9VKTL5mAt_C_kB0apa9DG8iQSGbhAH7pqDpOjct3JO5dXVPBpJzHx_DO2KcMZc/s1600-h/lilahovershoulder.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx2s6C3GEEe1YoSGOBKkOMtd1KhQah87pNmy2BM3iu3sbAYlXdhlJtMjguBzB3wzGx6vXwT5joperVcI9VKTL5mAt_C_kB0apa9DG8iQSGbhAH7pqDpOjct3JO5dXVPBpJzHx_DO2KcMZc/s320/lilahovershoulder.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440729032597134114" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwa4mf7MV1Jqji9-VKqwqNPYRgg0-zmNjsmomPKP7wkVBduI7FuSL5sIDoO0rs4uQHGub1mVmByEmYmoKuHYteQvKxyBV3KR3D_arDa5iTNzRcZKll3sP_8IBuG6rIzs334hrkrol6ZHC2/s1600-h/brodylittletodd.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwa4mf7MV1Jqji9-VKqwqNPYRgg0-zmNjsmomPKP7wkVBduI7FuSL5sIDoO0rs4uQHGub1mVmByEmYmoKuHYteQvKxyBV3KR3D_arDa5iTNzRcZKll3sP_8IBuG6rIzs334hrkrol6ZHC2/s320/brodylittletodd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440728940433410034" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvTdzXqkzUex6XsS5bXOLaRZYBmfEbfj67XRN82JeAQrV6r2YWumYM3siAUORZgWSe3IJoc7cvxZ4Rjmo2dxLRTU1UmLSbmh_C28JVAvK8mrAi3skr950bKeXb2bdnd4N-wSxiPkJts9V/s1600-h/lilah.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTvTdzXqkzUex6XsS5bXOLaRZYBmfEbfj67XRN82JeAQrV6r2YWumYM3siAUORZgWSe3IJoc7cvxZ4Rjmo2dxLRTU1UmLSbmh_C28JVAvK8mrAi3skr950bKeXb2bdnd4N-wSxiPkJts9V/s320/lilah.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440728863862232530" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKe8AIv5zytROhZy1QTK9DIdzvFPmwVKfiXpNO2Ghr4GVEuKH0f5nAvEs-QZZE0oIK2q1tF0abZc0TL4NNtRPXM5qYThyVS1RYEw7tOeRLD3APjLbsO-zJeE_hE-lDVEgY_wgIa3J1DasG/s1600-h/lilahwithmilktongue.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 218px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKe8AIv5zytROhZy1QTK9DIdzvFPmwVKfiXpNO2Ghr4GVEuKH0f5nAvEs-QZZE0oIK2q1tF0abZc0TL4NNtRPXM5qYThyVS1RYEw7tOeRLD3APjLbsO-zJeE_hE-lDVEgY_wgIa3J1DasG/s320/lilahwithmilktongue.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440729298910076066" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJ5OAQMyLLXukU5ojgKqlXo0GitXNzKSWMe1uc9fsj0Ha1q1Sl6TTw7VP3ehS5N1KHt_1SaCRITF1NSS2SoLrORdaVxG-xUsloRQyFnzLH8l2KHj3oWkwmSAC7BtFmnutFe0CTMH1CTYx/s1600-h/brodychillin.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJ5OAQMyLLXukU5ojgKqlXo0GitXNzKSWMe1uc9fsj0Ha1q1Sl6TTw7VP3ehS5N1KHt_1SaCRITF1NSS2SoLrORdaVxG-xUsloRQyFnzLH8l2KHj3oWkwmSAC7BtFmnutFe0CTMH1CTYx/s320/brodychillin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5440726437586739970" border="0" /></a>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-61816347978170139562010-02-04T14:38:00.005-05:002010-02-04T15:05:50.981-05:00Where for art thou, babies?I don't know why this has been so hard to write about. I've stopped and started so many times and yet no words I put down can fully capture the aching emptiness I feel at giving birth to babies and coming home from the hospital without them. What we endure to bring our babies into the world is easily forgotten when we cuddle the thing so hard won. When we smell its soft head, trace our fingers down a chubby, pink body, whisper silliness and love into its ears. But I don't have that now. I sit alone in rooms and wonder about the new lives I just ushered too early into the world. I carry guilt heavy in my chest. <em>Why wasn't I strong enough to carry them to term</em>? What defect brought on labor at 33 weeks?<br /><br />Also, I carry envy. As I endured an extremely painful recovery from a C-section, I was exposed to the sounds of happy moms and healthy babies in their rooms. Sweet, hungry cries for the bottle. High-pitched mommy voices soothing and playing. My room was eerily quiet at times, nothing but a frigid wind against my window. A phone ringing followed by congratulations that felt hollow and meaningless. The nurses told me to walk. So I did. Walking the long hallways of the maternity suite, I bore witness to a new horror. Affixed to the walls were picture after picture of babies. Pink-cheeked, happy, healthy babies. A baby in a flower pot wearing a crooked hat. Two babies dressed up like purple cabbages. Anne Geddes knock-offs that were even creepier than the originals. Everybody's perfect baby. Everybody's but mine. Thanks so much for hanging these prints on the walls, morons. It's just torture to see a robust newborn baby hatching out of an eggshell, when my babies have tubes coming out of their faces.<br /><br />I know I shouldn't compare. If we were to really play that game, there are preemies much worse off in the NICU than my little guys. Teeny-tiny preemies that will fit in the palm of your hand. That isn't cute. It's a fucking tragedy. My babies have been given a great prognosis. They will come home in several weeks and most likely be completely healthy. But right now, they are not. Right now, they struggle to do the normal things. Sucking a bottle is a difficult undertaking. Even breathing was hard for them at first. They been here a week and I've held them in my arms maybe 3 times. I've given one bottle to their sweet, hungry mouths. I've changed one diaper.<br /><br />I know once they're home it will feel like they've always been. But right now I'm in purgatory. I sit at home with all these nurturing chemicals searing through me and strangers are caring for my babies. It just plain hurts a whole hell of a lot. That's about as eloquent as it gets these days, folks. My heart is just broken.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-60551835512228043272010-02-01T00:48:00.005-05:002010-02-01T00:58:45.712-05:00Yellow Babies, Blue MamaDorian Brody<br /><div>5 lbs, 4 oz</div><div>1/27/10</div><br /><div></div><div>&</div><br /><div></div><div>Lilah Margaret</div><div>5 lbs, 8 oz.</div><div>1/27/10</div><div></div><div></div><br /><div>born at 33 weeks gestation<br /><br /></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAe0AumnQbsA8p_m01mVWs-VcP7s_LvHGK6lnKHdUclXXhRNguQJznEQYOc72w8mDiT4O9ptAy4wmVninJssePGPuXDpsAsLZEEfeW2dOvgLgoZRAeMLz3uH0h6ja0kLUjuprwujrq74mv/s1600-h/brodyinisolette.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433148892292927010" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAe0AumnQbsA8p_m01mVWs-VcP7s_LvHGK6lnKHdUclXXhRNguQJznEQYOc72w8mDiT4O9ptAy4wmVninJssePGPuXDpsAsLZEEfeW2dOvgLgoZRAeMLz3uH0h6ja0kLUjuprwujrq74mv/s320/brodyinisolette.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhrx-8U3yId7UK_FP6dMb5wGY5ogoX2gVaNqmQlM9mobvBeiWXj6VR_PyzvCXWBk78HKBe7OD6CDXyCIxXW2pw1q4RuqUbBRVtgudHQmGg9tR7HuH8lgRTG9IFHFGLeD5MUEVL3C7c3uRl/s1600-h/lilah.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433149002316682610" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhrx-8U3yId7UK_FP6dMb5wGY5ogoX2gVaNqmQlM9mobvBeiWXj6VR_PyzvCXWBk78HKBe7OD6CDXyCIxXW2pw1q4RuqUbBRVtgudHQmGg9tR7HuH8lgRTG9IFHFGLeD5MUEVL3C7c3uRl/s320/lilah.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pm5vdRS-ZJy2Nn6984NTilkgti_BIiighDaeB0TUd4RVyHRBRdXjK1sXtc5VkQXwac-JrJeJfeTWz0fIVrmz0CSya2qSgj5Dljsex-CWQJ2NmgTFkdZoq9hjPSmpbhqIfrS2jnFVNpMN/s1600-h/lilahbigeyes.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433150216094281522" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pm5vdRS-ZJy2Nn6984NTilkgti_BIiighDaeB0TUd4RVyHRBRdXjK1sXtc5VkQXwac-JrJeJfeTWz0fIVrmz0CSya2qSgj5Dljsex-CWQJ2NmgTFkdZoq9hjPSmpbhqIfrS2jnFVNpMN/s320/lilahbigeyes.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-1494667337079230252009-12-18T14:12:00.016-05:002009-12-18T15:28:33.086-05:00Christmas Pictures"Mom? You know how you said God gave me to you as a present?"<br /><br /><br />"Yes. Yes, he did. It was the best gift I ever got."<br /><br /><br />"Well, I hope you remembered to send him a thank you card for that."<br /><br /><br />What she doesn't know is that there are no words that could ever convey the gratitude I feel for her existence.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheE2_53Cq5tvF6_mbmveTI97Mx09ME2Q5SYRhppV9-kYLDRvYk4O7PEKT9yL6U4tZ3Kym_wifi03zYd6bBdCwoV-9f7TYu3r8x7PCmUerkE0uAHgrXXE6LFG1uw_sq3xCfKU_4deOhbP04/s1600-h/livheadtiltonchair.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416670434199478562" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheE2_53Cq5tvF6_mbmveTI97Mx09ME2Q5SYRhppV9-kYLDRvYk4O7PEKT9yL6U4tZ3Kym_wifi03zYd6bBdCwoV-9f7TYu3r8x7PCmUerkE0uAHgrXXE6LFG1uw_sq3xCfKU_4deOhbP04/s320/livheadtiltonchair.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8S0IlQCgVi6O4MrZODF54tYcjx6JXQk1W1dB4t-vYQwDnRvvNBpXdZTMe1ZpD1-uzj8EJSM_XUB4bLlO-gLb7_ujue2i4YbeCxsD2wnO0lkpfjj8CYj-qkQLfh20qYNVsd2mOBBm05Idq/s1600-h/Livhandonshoulder.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416670262839010834" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8S0IlQCgVi6O4MrZODF54tYcjx6JXQk1W1dB4t-vYQwDnRvvNBpXdZTMe1ZpD1-uzj8EJSM_XUB4bLlO-gLb7_ujue2i4YbeCxsD2wnO0lkpfjj8CYj-qkQLfh20qYNVsd2mOBBm05Idq/s320/Livhandonshoulder.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidf2FQvixedcYMOQ2GktRAKqrsQ3TK7SNaD_mWiyzZAtdPeIeLr9UCQ4Yb6KAIejjWVhm-Dfar05eQjTko9-LqmCVhHRBmdBWboLwUsgIf3uXCWwlRXLpJy3rEr5u7iasnPFaDOmRMTXt2/s1600-h/Livfaceinhands.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416670154301170162" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidf2FQvixedcYMOQ2GktRAKqrsQ3TK7SNaD_mWiyzZAtdPeIeLr9UCQ4Yb6KAIejjWVhm-Dfar05eQjTko9-LqmCVhHRBmdBWboLwUsgIf3uXCWwlRXLpJy3rEr5u7iasnPFaDOmRMTXt2/s320/Livfaceinhands.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbctmrfuWKMgtVhRgeD22CsGHV1M8qZdY4iE7PdjqQMxkWMxLtyvo8KNg4NmG2uvv7WWIYAzbV4jD-JKxpYNS9BY856Kg7afRgqfhZkdFTpr82dSyk4ltS9KVAqAToTwMd3wENr-7_aTkz/s1600-h/Livbigteethysmile.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416662812438351394" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbctmrfuWKMgtVhRgeD22CsGHV1M8qZdY4iE7PdjqQMxkWMxLtyvo8KNg4NmG2uvv7WWIYAzbV4jD-JKxpYNS9BY856Kg7afRgqfhZkdFTpr82dSyk4ltS9KVAqAToTwMd3wENr-7_aTkz/s320/Livbigteethysmile.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7HcGQGgNEpXjq1CHrQxsejngxbCb6Q87goNZIYrEafqRkWkLD51Go9XdZqNFdGUH-Po9Yw8XiBzmiCJtSQeWfOX7TJGWTNnuaOtpXJLcIS9R9AdVFMWQMJhn5KWH0UecmOUObfPN7CNQ1/s1600-h/livsittingonchair.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkeXo5fUbdanuoToKJyB752fzweh6uGRmr_BxNnhSwcuJEXyg7cVmdoyN0YGpZmS1zkCoN9ujQL_TCezZUNKhcVFWvyqj1odSA-mNpxnY0Xi4C4y9HKgfRgX3OgZ9s1C5gIaYXZti3cSz/s1600-h/livlayingonside.jpg"></a></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2paLau41HizLrbcndGrAz_ACGBFUq719cSD-CQcc9ju8GclG_RFpjwjyGCEeDpVrJ4C5myekwq8Z27wgcSxA7nw1BnGpDbVGcVlDmY5c7x-u2GTsbzxudy5eFPA9ZxRH7cgxOEskZ6xVo/s1600-h/Livfullbodyleaningonhand.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5416670331110496290" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2paLau41HizLrbcndGrAz_ACGBFUq719cSD-CQcc9ju8GclG_RFpjwjyGCEeDpVrJ4C5myekwq8Z27wgcSxA7nw1BnGpDbVGcVlDmY5c7x-u2GTsbzxudy5eFPA9ZxRH7cgxOEskZ6xVo/s320/Livfullbodyleaningonhand.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkeXo5fUbdanuoToKJyB752fzweh6uGRmr_BxNnhSwcuJEXyg7cVmdoyN0YGpZmS1zkCoN9ujQL_TCezZUNKhcVFWvyqj1odSA-mNpxnY0Xi4C4y9HKgfRgX3OgZ9s1C5gIaYXZti3cSz/s1600-h/livlayingonside.jpg"></a></div><br /><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkeXo5fUbdanuoToKJyB752fzweh6uGRmr_BxNnhSwcuJEXyg7cVmdoyN0YGpZmS1zkCoN9ujQL_TCezZUNKhcVFWvyqj1odSA-mNpxnY0Xi4C4y9HKgfRgX3OgZ9s1C5gIaYXZti3cSz/s1600-h/livlayingonside.jpg"></a></div></div></div></div></div>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-67669826866428769522009-12-11T19:23:00.006-05:002009-12-11T20:37:07.786-05:00Nuvaring BitchesAm I only one who hates these <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY3MfNWHGvk"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Nuvaring</span> birth control bitches</a>? I seriously loathe these women. It's apparently girls night with three "besties" sitting around a coffee table nary a wine bottle in sight. The TV is on in the background and the old Nuvaring commercial starts playing. The stupid wavy haired one says, "<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Ooooh</span>, I love this commercial!" and then proceeds to sing along to the most unimaginative jingle ever penned by a human. I mean how untalented do you have to be to come up with these lyrics? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Everyday, aaaa aaaah. Everytime I see her bob her head back and forth singing along to it I have a strong urge to bash her head into a million tiny pieces of bone and brain matter.<br /><br />Then her "friend" tries to be all nonchalant, leaning forward <em>pretending</em> to get a snack while asking with a devilish gleam in her dead eyes, "Would you guys try Nuvaring?" But you can just tell that she's been waiting all night for this. This whorebag has some kind of an agenda and it creeps me the fuck out. Like, why is she so invested in her friends sticking a plastic birth control device in their vaginas? The black woman sitting next to her is the least annoying of the bunch but I'd still murder her with my bare hands. That is, if her grotesquely shiny shirt doesn't give me a seizure first. She says, "I don't even know what it is." Don't worry! Because Nuvaring pusher is going to tell you all about it. Her voice gets all weird and affected "It's. A. Monthly. Vaginal. Birth. Control. Ring. That. delivers a low dose of hormones."<br /><br />Wavy haired, dumb commercial loving woman finally gets it. You can see how it just clicks and she realizes that this is the birth control you have to...Gasp!...put in your vagina! "Don't you have to...put it in" she says while making odd hand gestures. But Nuvaring pusher won't let her go there. Because for her it's <em>easy</em>. "It's small and comfortable, plus" (she leans in conspiratorially) "you don't have to take it every day." And there it is, folks. There you have it. I don't know how feminism has survived all these years, how we women have managed to lead meaningful, productive lives while attached to the oppressive tether that is <em>swallowing a pill every day.</em> But Nuvaring will set us free from this tyranny. Indeed, Nuvaring pusher has declared, "Let my people go." She is Moses parting the Red Sea, except the Red Sea is more like the labial lips of women everywhere.<br /><br />If Margaret Sanger were alive today she'd be slapping some bitches. Not even a century ago, women weren't allowed to vote for our leaders, obtain a legal and safe abortion, or maintain any control of our own reproductive powers. The Comstock Laws made illegal the dissemination of information on contraception and the distribution of contraceptive devices. <em>That</em> is oppression, Nuvaring pusher. I don't know who you sold your soul to or why, but you are obviously in league with some Satanic element. And if I never see your smug, creepy smile on my TV again, it will be too soon.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-64138070710392219092009-11-26T09:35:00.008-05:002009-11-26T09:50:11.787-05:00Twins in utero<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1w5dIR8Pann_ABZUexch9hw604hdOiQI60z2TNBuyFCXwWEJiFYj4pZ4xbcMDmwhVI9BshtsH02wOlWhYtT2U92jgo5tMOb8hhXTKcKPktzZLPTiLE0vb4Ts4HN5t5hducp5WasgJSE69/s1600/ultrasoundbabyboy[1].JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408423609700842178" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 258px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1w5dIR8Pann_ABZUexch9hw604hdOiQI60z2TNBuyFCXwWEJiFYj4pZ4xbcMDmwhVI9BshtsH02wOlWhYtT2U92jgo5tMOb8hhXTKcKPktzZLPTiLE0vb4Ts4HN5t5hducp5WasgJSE69/s320/ultrasoundbabyboy%5B1%5D.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />My sweet, baby boy<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK6vP6yYD2eamthljOs3Spk7inZ_jzvAN__K8H_UzGhQP2PW3ULXJpErKoQdH7CSOPaXsUM5hi9LDKfumqUNEsdKhlfa0c1EtNtlkVMcRTDo_2yZ63c88soE7Bdxm6-Bfz3KxIKsHFxVPZ/s1600/ultrasoundvagina.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408423284109399554" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 302px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK6vP6yYD2eamthljOs3Spk7inZ_jzvAN__K8H_UzGhQP2PW3ULXJpErKoQdH7CSOPaXsUM5hi9LDKfumqUNEsdKhlfa0c1EtNtlkVMcRTDo_2yZ63c88soE7Bdxm6-Bfz3KxIKsHFxVPZ/s320/ultrasoundvagina.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Girl parts. I'll just take their word for it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1Ib0lgCGf0kxf8pRLiYUofnEeIaji_IHNi_QX5oR2A14WJ7NlSlxzjmgpjOYpltBQf1Llot2hE6POp1xacYxMIfZEoBvWyZrC09G_LhPwBE-cnvGzGVOy1k5RL3K4Ei2-5hC6hyphenhyphencbr31/s1600/ultrasoundpenis[1].JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408423116003406802" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 280px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1Ib0lgCGf0kxf8pRLiYUofnEeIaji_IHNi_QX5oR2A14WJ7NlSlxzjmgpjOYpltBQf1Llot2hE6POp1xacYxMIfZEoBvWyZrC09G_LhPwBE-cnvGzGVOy1k5RL3K4Ei2-5hC6hyphenhyphencbr31/s320/ultrasoundpenis%5B1%5D.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />Money shot: Boy parts<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5gJLCJWLbv23A1dbmUiU_yyR5mnikGf2bgR2qXdtTG-8ULdqjKvA7RGNn9t3E1FRn_5-uVVGo5Q_pcXpkxyLHn4OvizRNJL87H2HTAYnTqvp_4y1j-NUiy8_ThbtisJAd7FrdNViAzKL/s1600/ultrasoundbabyboy[1].JPG"></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJjhAY7Rq1j4NysvejG5cn7qFzZsGXGZqFzlE9hqhgL0rRl712kuFbBByH4maB6XjpPzyDRBuQCOuGcUqrJ5MxNXsc_euKmaEYaXDwImKSPheqki0MYLmg97ALROe5qHqPcatJxl3CZid/s1600/ultrasoundhands[1].JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408422822628138722" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 262px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJjhAY7Rq1j4NysvejG5cn7qFzZsGXGZqFzlE9hqhgL0rRl712kuFbBByH4maB6XjpPzyDRBuQCOuGcUqrJ5MxNXsc_euKmaEYaXDwImKSPheqki0MYLmg97ALROe5qHqPcatJxl3CZid/s320/ultrasoundhands%5B1%5D.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Twins touching hands through the membrane.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-69168062887586918422009-11-25T19:37:00.002-05:002009-11-25T21:09:34.862-05:00ThankfulTomorrow I will celebrate Thanksgiving for the 7th time. Out of my 34 years, I have spent only 7 Thanksgivings seated at smooshed together dinner tables over-eating turkey and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce with my family on the 4th Thursday of November. Only Jehovah's Witnesses could find something satanic about such an innocent celebration - eating delicious food and expressing gratitude for the myriad of life's blessings.<br /><br />Indeed, my Jehovah's Witness childhood was full of what I could not do. Traditional celebrations were forbidden:<br /><br />Birthdays<br />Halloween<br />Christmas<br />New Year's Eve<br />4th of July<br />Valentine's Day<br />Easter<br />St. Patrick's Day<br />Mother's Day<br />Father's Day<br /><br />I could not participate in after-school activities, such as sports or drama. Because my participating in these things would bring me into contact with people who were not of my faith and thus under the influence of Satan and destined for eternal destruction. I could not attend school dances, homecoming, or prom for the very same reason. I was not permitted to go to college because Armageddon was imminent and I needed to concentrate my efforts on preaching the so-called "good news", which was really an ultimatum: join us or die. Saturday mornings I spent out knocking on doors, dreading that the next door I knocked on would have someone from school behind it. When this inevitably happened there are no words for the humiliation I endured, the gut-wrenching shame I experienced. <br /><br />My thoughts, my feelings, even my dreams did not belong to me. It is so painful to visit that now, the memory of those empty years. I was forced to make so many sacrifices and it was all for nothing. What they called "The Truth" was a complete and total lie. <br /><br />Who knows what I would have become if it weren't for that fucking cult and it's brutal influence over my family. I struggle with so much anger and grief. I think about the little girl that I was, so full of potential for great things. And then I look in the mirror at what I have become and I want to spit in my own face. I have spent the past 10 years trying to make sense of what happened to me and attempting to undo the damage. I don't know that this is possible. I can't go back and retrieve memories of what never was. I can't have Christmas mornings tearing open presents. I can't have dressing up in a princess costume for Halloween. I can't have exchanging Valentines with secret crushes. I can't have sparklers on the 4th of July. I can't have pictures of me in a terrible, taffeta dress arm in arm with my prom date. I can't have living in a dorm and figuring out how I'm going to change the world over a dozen cheap beers. <br /><br />What I had was not enough. I feel like I have these huge gaping holes inside of me, paths not taken, wounds that won't heal, abilities never realized. This emptiness is nauseating. I wonder what it would feel like to be a whole person. What does it feel like? Tell me. Somedays I want to crawl into the skull of someone else. Just for a little while. So that I could know.<br /><br />Tomorrow I will pretend to be whole as I dine with my family, celebrating Thanksgiving as if it always was this way with us. Pretending we are normal and that we have memories tucked inside of us of so many Thanksgivings past. My daughter will never know any different and sometimes I resent her for it. I watch as she circles things in a catalog. "I want all these things for Christmas, mom!" She doesn't notice the tears gathering, the deep breath. "Anything you want sweetie. Santa knows what a good girl you've been."<br /><br />That's all I can do now - Live through her. And I know that despite my past, I do have the present to be thankful for. My wild Liv, two babies having a party in my womb, a mom who's cancer was caught early enough to treat (stage 2), a husband who loves me despite what I am. I guess most of all, though, I am thankful to have control over my own mind and freedom from psychological tyranny. I know how precious that is. I will never take it for granted.<br /><br />Happy Thanksgiving to you all.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-71474289286781957232009-10-24T19:54:00.003-04:002009-10-28T21:24:12.501-04:00Kick MeThere's nothing in the realm of my experience that compares to that first swoosh in the womb. I'm not talking about those soft flutters or the quick ticklings or the questionable bubbles. The quickenings. Those can all be explained away in my mind as something else: hunger pangs, gas. I'm talking about the moment, the feeling, the unmistakable proof of life. The rolling and tapping of a tiny life that is moving of its own accord within my body. Before this movement, of course, I was aware of the pregnancy. I had taken the test and seen the plus sign. I suffered through the 1st trimester nausea and fatigue. I took the blood tests, even saw two little human-ish figures flipping me off in black and white ultrasound photos. Twin gestation confirmed. A baby boy and a baby girl.<br /><br /><br />But everything is different now. The image has come into focus. The lens has been defogged. This is the beginning of a lifetime of knowing. A lifetime of discovering what they like, what they dream, <em>who they are</em>. Two people are alive inside of me. They are attached and dependent, but they are separate from me in every imaginable way. Baby A, the girl, is already making me laugh. She is positioned over my bladder and tickles me with her rolling. Baby B, the boy, can't make up his mind. He is jabbing me on the left one minute and then jabbing me on the right the next. One day he plays hard without rest. The next day he is lazy and making me worry.<br /><br />I like to shake the twins awake when they are sleeping. This is a sort of pre-revenge for all the sleepless nights that are surely in my future courtesy of the two of them. I grip my uterus on both sides with my hands and shake it firmly, but gently. Without fail those two creatures start up their distinct activity, no doubt flipping me off in the process. Why does it delight me to irritate them? Because it's my way of saying, "I love you". Liv will vouch for that. Everytime I tease her by telling her that I've changed her name to Willis or Barney or Leroy and then proceed to call her that for the rest of the day, I am actually saying, "I love you enough to take this time to irritate the shit out of you." Also it makes me feel powerful to pick on someone smaller.<br /><br />These sweet fetal movements fuel my optimism for a joyful future. Without them, pregnancy is just a miserable, desolate experience. Before my physical awareness of their existence, I felt cursed. Sickness, exhaustion, heartburn, low back pain, deformity. Yes, deformity. Because let's face it: I look like I have a beach-ball sized tumor growing out the front of my abdomen. I would say, "Men are lucky sons of bitches...no, saints. They are sons of saints." But the fetal movements change everything. They remind me that my body, no matter how deformed, is performing a miracle. The blessing, the privilege of carrying and making human beings far outweighs the discomfort and the agony of pregnancy and childbirth.<br /><br />The kick and the jab of my unborn babies' feeble limbs are my reward for enduring so much annoying shit. So if I have to wake them up to get my fix, they'll just have to fucking deal with it. They'd better get a thick skin real quick if they are going to be my kids.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-15149051857280348092009-10-17T15:03:00.003-04:002009-10-19T08:43:18.750-04:00Best Case Scenarios"Do you feel it?"<br /><br />I'm standing in my mother's kitchen pressing my fingertips against her right breast looking for the thing that left her sleepless the night before. Searching in a circular motion, the way the brochures they hand out at the gynecologist tell you to. At the 2 o'clock position, I find it. Nestled against her breast bone, a tiny object - a cross between a pebble and a marshmallow. I've felt similar things in my own breasts, when I still possessed them. I remember laying supine on my bed, topless, doing this private work. Every ridge or bump causing my heart to beat faster, my mind to orchestrate the worst possible thoughts. In the moment of discovery, I am already in a chair with an IV pumping chemotherapeutic chemicals into my body. I am already composing my last will and testament. I am already the deceased mother of a motherless child.<br /><br />But for everyone else I offer best case scenarios.<br /><br />"Yeah, I feel it." My brow furrows. "It feels too soft to be cancer."<br /><br />"Would you be worried? I mean, if you found this in your breast?"<br /><br />I almost laugh because when you have a BRCA2 mutation, you don't even need to find something suspicious to worry. You spend every moment of your life waiting for the axe to fall. You are on high alert, tensed and pretending to be ready for the inevitable moment your body betrays you.<br /><br />"I would definitely get it checked out. I mean, I've had similar lumps that were biopsied and turned out to be nothing. Just get it checked out. It couldn't hurt."<br /><br />It is October 1st. The first day of Breast Cancer Awareness month. In my family, we don't need a government sponsored month to remind us of the horrors of breast cancer. I don't need to buy a pink kitchen appliance or a ribbon magnet or hot pink M&Ms. Nothing I could see or buy could make me more aware. Because I am constantly made brutally aware of breast cancer by what is <em>not there</em>. My breasts and, more terribly, my sister. The savage memories of Amy's death and my mastectomy linger tenaciously in the brain.<br /><br />This is why I hate Breast Cancer Awareness month. I don't need more reminders of the things I have lost. I don't need to watch perky women recount how they've conquered breast cancer and reassuring doctors sing-song how early detection saves lives. I don't need to see shelves of pink goods at the grocery stores. It is infuriating that some corporations are exploiting a disease to increase their profits. Breast cancer cannot be represented by a cutesy candy pink Kitchen-Aid. Breast cancer is a horrible, disfiguring disease that destroys lives and the emotional health of families. Fuck Breast Cancer Awareness month. How about living Breast Cancer Awareness <strong><em>life</em></strong>?<br /><br />In the kitchen, there is a quiet. We are both thinking the same thing, my mom and I. Not this again. Please God, not this again. Cancer has taken his seat at the table. He is sticking his dirty finger in a fresh wound.<br /><br />"Just call Dr. Kr--sher. Tell her what's going on and I'm sure she'll order a test right away."<br /><br />"I'm scared."<br /><br />"Don't be. I'm sure it's nothing. Just for your own peace of mind, get it looked at. You're due for a mammo anyway. You'll get the test and it will be nothing and you'll feel better." Best case scenarios.<br /><br />But it isn't nothing. It's cancer. Confirmed by biopsy. My mother has breast cancer. My stomach does a sick flip to see that in writing. I had lied to her the way I lied to Amy a million times.<br /><br /><em>You're going to be fine.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>I'm sure it's nothing.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>It's probably been caught early.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>They have so many medicines and treatments now.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>You won't die. You can't die.</em><br /><br />Sometimes I lied so well that I even convinced myself. What I want to know is, Why? Why is this disease attacking my family? Why doesn't it leave us the fuck alone already? Haven't we given enough? Haven't we lost enough? Haven't we cried enough? Haven't we watched a beautiful, young woman deteriorate into a sallow, dead shell enough?<br /><br />For my mom's sake, I will keep spinning out best case scenarios. Maybe this time they'll turn out to be true.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-29119958437412737822009-09-21T10:45:00.003-04:002009-09-21T12:35:58.661-04:00Fun with NamesChoosing names for the aliens is not easy. I have 5 months (hopefully) to work on this but it really is an important decision. I still haven't found out the genders, so I'm considering multiple options for each sex. I'm going to throw some names out there and get your opinion on some of these.<br /><br />I noticed how many people are naming their daughters boy names these days. Ryan, Evan, Charlie, Tristan, Drew. So I thought - why not Richard? I could spell it Rychard. The Y makes it feminine, don't you think? Y is really a magical letter. It can change any boy name into a girl one. Bruce turns into Bryuce (the Y is silent). Michael turns into Mychael. Stephen turns into Stephyn. Of course, I could just do it the old-fashioned way with this one and call her Stephanie. But who wants to be traditional? I want my daughter to be Uneeeeeek. I mean, if I give her a normal name how will she know that she is special and different than everyone else?<br /><br />Another name I was considering for a girl was Lillith. But it's just too common. So I wanted to make it different. Y to the rescue! Lyllyth. Now its a totally different name! Lylly for short. Lily is getting too popular. But Lylly will surely set her apart from any Lilys running around the playground.<br /><br />Now for possible boy names. I noticed names like Gunner and Hunter are fairly popular. What about Killer? Murderer has a great sound to it but it's too long and I can't think of any good nicknames for it. Can you? Another one I'm thinking about is Bladen. At first I wanted just Blade. But Bladen is so uneeek.<br /><br />A lot of people I know have given their sons a surname for a first name. What a cool idea! I mean, who needs a first name when you can have two last names? Carter, Walker, Cooper, Sawyer. These are all great but just way too popular. What about Zakowski? It's not a family name or anything. I'm not even Polish. I just think it sounds cool. We could call him Zak for short.<br /><br />Oh sweet Jesus, I can't do this anymore. I'm actually in physical pain after writing that. You want to know what the truly scary thing is? If you go to any number of baby name forums on the internet you will find the same kind of pathological reasonings as would be mothers contemplate and decide on names for their offspring. I'm terrified after reading some of that shit. Can we, as a culture, band together and stop trying to be unique when naming our children? These are not housecats or hamsters we're naming. They're human beings who will one day grow up and have to live in the world with these monikers we've so lovingly and thoughtfully bestowed upon them. These names will be on test papers and ballots and driver's licenses and resumes. Your 5 year old little girl named McKadylynn is adorable now, but what about when she grows up? Can you picture a federal judge with this monstrosity for a name? I don't even want to think about a future where that happens.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-62340765065051773962009-09-01T13:29:00.008-04:002009-09-02T21:21:50.341-04:00Childbirth is NastyIt's weird the way we mothers look back with fondness on an experience that is (for the most part) quite painful and horrific. I'm talking, of course, about the experience of giving birth to our children. I'm specifying children here, because in about 6 months I will be giving birth to a couple of aliens, as evidenced by the ultrasound pics I posted last week. My first baby was a human but she was hell to get out of my body.<br /><br />In the week before I finally expelled her, I wound up in the Labor & Delivery emergency room three times. Twice for false labor. It was my first baby and I didn't really know how it felt. If I <em>had </em>known how it felt, I probably would have killed myself before I ever had to actually do the work. The third time I wound up there, I thought for sure that this was <em>it</em>. I was in so much pain - gnawing, unrelenting agony. What I had thought for sure were labor pains, turned out to be a nice size kidney stone working it's way down my ureter. The doctor gave me scripts for Percocet and Ambien and told me to "go home and have a beer." I loved him. I think I still do.<br /><br />Hurricane Katrina was raging on the Gulf Coast, and I remember sitting at home watching the news footage. I couldn't really emotionally connect to what was happening in the world, to the awful things that were happening to those poor people, I must admit. My personal world was in turmoil and I was high on painkillers. It was completely surreal.<br /><br />I was scheduled to be induced the day before my due date. But I had heard so many horror stories about inducement that I wanted to go into labor naturally. So I said to Todd, "You know, sex can induce labor. What do you say? You want to do it?" He was totally game, my horny husband. It must have felt like fucking a manatee.<br /><br />Hours later I was having active contractions and out of my damn mind with pain. Todd held my hand tight as an inept nurse tried to stick an IV into my arm to administer pain medication. My dear, sweet husband said, "I'm here...You're Ok. I'm not going anywhere." As the nurse stuck me over and over again in her futile attempts to find a vein, Todd stood up and sauntered right out of the room. Like, he just left without saying a word. I was in one of those rooms that just has a privacy curtain as a wall. Seconds later I heard a loud crash and under the curtain I spied Todd laying on the ground unconscious with a small pool of blood gathering around his head. He had fainted, and taken down a large metal cart along the way to the floor. I just started screaming. Like obnoxiously screaming.<br /><br />It took a team of people, including my obstetrician, to calm me down. My OB explained that men faint all the time when their wives are in labor. I thought that was only something that happened in stupid sitcoms. Apparently not. They took Todd to the ER and I was assured that he was going to be fine after he got a few stitches. Then the doctor ordered some strong sleepytime medicine for this crazy lady. God bless him. Did I tell you that I'm in love with this guy?<br /><br />Waking up from my blissful coma to godawful pain was just indescribable. You know, pain that makes a woman <em>beg </em>for someone to stick a fat needle in her spine must be pretty fucking awful. Todd had finally returned to me with fresh stitches in his chin and was full of apologies. He spent the rest of the day on his cell phone doing his Fantasy Football draft.<br /><br />Twelve hours later, I was still not fully dilated. My epidural had worn off and when I pleaded for another one, a fucking snooty nurse said, "You're supposed to be in pain. You're in labor, hon." If I wasn't catheterized and partially numb from the waist down, I really think I would have attacked her like a wild animal. I hate those fucking people who think that childbirth is <em>supposed</em> to hurt. I especially hate those woman who think they are somehow superior human beings because they gave birth without pain medication or an epidural. What the fuck does that prove? If someone said to me, "I had my appendix removed without anesthesia. It's just more natural that way," I would think that they were insane. That's kind of how I feel about these "natural" childbirth women. Don't get me wrong - people can have their babies any way they damn well please. If somebody wants to endure excruciating pain for absolutely no reason, then godspeed. Just don't expect me to admire you for it. It doesn't make you a superhero or even a better mother than someone who opts for pain management.<br /><br />When my OB came to me at 2 am and said, "We're going to need to do a C-Section," I wanted to kiss him. After 16 hours of labor, I knew that I wouldn't have the strength to push the baby out. I was relieved that my vagina would remain intact. I had had nightmares about needing an episiotomy. Yes, I'd rather have major abdominal surgery than be sliced open along my perineum. Then and now and always.<br /><br />For my C-section, they laid me out on an uncomfortable bed with both my arms strapped down on extended boards at my side, I felt like I was being crucified. Why it's necessary to restrain a woman during this process is baffling to me. Helpless feeling. Paralyzed from the waist down, arms tightly strapped down, a blue sheet hung down between my eyes and some truly gruesome activity. When they cut, I could feel the blade opening my abdomen. It didn't hurt at all; But I could feel it happening. I could feel my doctor's hands inside of me tugging Liv out of her warm, snuggly home. And then: silence. For a brief moment after she was born into the world, she was quiet. I felt this sick panic and screamed for her. I heard my voice yelling "My baby - is she ok?" And finally - I heard her crying. It was the last time I'd be happy to hear that.<br /><br />Childbirth is just nasty. I think that's why God made pregnancy so horrible. By the time we're full term, we're willing to go through anything for it to be over. Why am I telling you all this? Because Liv had her 4th birthday yesterday. Four years ago I became a mother. And I'm about to do it again and again. I feel insane right now - more so than usual. <img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377043821514878434" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 170px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 111px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqGx6hSYZSQ1_NQB6_rGq9U4b8Z9cLlyUYU-Kkz3MrFLxRPSDxTEcI15QzDD7d684oRqy8Cm9qhrTc6ocUlNNN53E9wp7efOOiv8doJLbJxjAKpbuKCau9Xm2OfHNWIi8r_JOlu9EykHLq/s400/livborn.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><br /><br />Me and Liv 9/1/05Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-44063678475526022342009-08-28T11:21:00.003-04:002009-08-28T11:24:54.681-04:00Aliens<div>My kids look like aliens. </div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5375035201552440546" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 332px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjprr0XnkJpw6rtTk4P-xhJMk_wfACRS3fGPoPG2JPcBcPxalnp2Lu75g2ZImaUY6byLRjoBjNns1RkEu8eQIccFHhlYnEEEn98davwSqugjXwhZoHP-GKPWgW5YzK6DP8Xdtw6aJJ0FWEC/s400/babyaface.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><p>They even look like they're flipping me off with both hands. I love them already.</p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5375035384644473890" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 280px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg42DwTR90JmA0NjDAK9rQ2JmCsN4kLV76tUoPMp0OamDxDa_0GPCG9R_2OyRCbzVqZXEehjSJg73Qblov7J4c4HezsaxSztFXOQU3OY5EYw6zcF-d8c3yBZOqq_2C5TuBPOe3dU-zvpzog/s400/babybface.jpg" border="0" /><br /><p><br /></p><br /><div></div>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-10800689055789149802009-08-18T13:18:00.002-04:002009-08-18T13:49:04.020-04:00Worst Blog EverI'm not dead. But I really, really wish I were. Yeah, I'm back to that but for different reasons. You see, no matter how much I rest, change up my diet, drink ginger ale, take Zofran - I still feel like I have a stomach bug 24 hours a day. I'm still dry heaving and vomiting and nauseated at all hours of the day. Nothing will kill your creative drive like this situation. I want to curl up in a ball and wait for it to be over. Yet I can't. Everything needs doing. Dishes, laundry, doctor's appointments, eating. Oh god. The fucking eating. It's like an added job I have now. Eating. I can't wait until the nausea tinged ravenous hunger goes away forever and ever. <br /><br />So I'm nauseous, constantly hungry but with zero appetite, in pain from a few large cysts that have made a cozy little home on my ovary, fatigued, and worst of all I somehow got sucked into watching that horrible show More to Love that I blogged about a while back. I'm so ashamed. I hate the show. It makes me feel gross. Here's why: The women are pretty and yet all they do is complain about the fact that no guys ever like them because of their size. Every bad thing in their life they manage to blame on their weight. Everything. They don't talk about anything but their weight. I'm screaming at my TV, "Don't you have anything else to fucking talk about? Books? Movies? Politics?" And it's become painfully obvious to me that the reason these women are unlucky in love is because they have zero self-esteem whatsoever. Are there men who don't like heavier women? Sure. But I still see heavyset women in relationships all of the time. If you have large boobs and a vagina, you're bound to find a man at some point. Right? Just having a vagina means never having to beg for sex. <br /><br />Which is why I'm really confused about that new HBO show Hung. How is Ray finding all these women to pay him for sex? I realize he has a big dick and all, but even so. He is sort of a pompous ass about it. Eh, I don't get it. But I still watch it. Honestly, my TV watching is out of control and it's about to turn into a full-blown addictive disease once September comes. <br /><br />What I am most excited about (aka what is keeping me alive):<br /><br />1. Sons of Anarchy<br />2. Mad Men<br />3. House<br />4. So You Think You Can Dance<br />5. Fringe<br /><br />How about you?Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-2749895514148149772009-08-05T23:35:00.000-04:002009-08-05T15:20:11.198-04:00Fairly Badparents<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY77O7UK07wTRT8-cHYDQarTbVaDpTzKhGm7XFeyhjnD5chVnpA6HSB8H1Ks9cIPSZ-7tdmGJQ3Bd-vADEjQKbkgf2na_slL58bnFu2tdi26KMhK27eFQ2y0jBJ1qEzEmrx6azde0Mgxap/s1600-h/southparkkids.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296582500428424274" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 240px; height: 180px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY77O7UK07wTRT8-cHYDQarTbVaDpTzKhGm7XFeyhjnD5chVnpA6HSB8H1Ks9cIPSZ-7tdmGJQ3Bd-vADEjQKbkgf2na_slL58bnFu2tdi26KMhK27eFQ2y0jBJ1qEzEmrx6azde0Mgxap/s400/southparkkids.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Originally posted Jan. 28, 2009</span><br /><br />I get a lot of flack from a lot of people for letting Liv watch "South Park". Apparently this makes me a terrible parent. And maybe that's true. I don't deny that my parenting skills are amateur on a good day. I don't deny that I struggle with the complex nature of proper bedtimes, balanced meals, and the importance of saying "No". I do, however, take great pride in the fact that I'm a better mother than Susan Smith, Andrea Yates, and all those mothers on Lifetime made-for-TV movies "suffering" from Munchausen's by Proxy. At least my kid is still alive and not slowly dying from arsenic poisoning. Her teeth may be rotting out of her mouth with multiple cavities from all the candy I use to bribe her to behave herself, but they're just her milk teeth. I'll get it right with the second set, I promise.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCBeR5gq-RQAR-miInZJgtiIWLy4pvVui4ECBDV8zUuRHHqukGu2znLEHlt9YJFUhyUzwtJaKA7GSayL47P4WMVzSHkzAC014yRnRRjqAIQDhNV5jqAMOBjitSMWZF92hYsd5Mb9DnqTzA/s1600-h/southparkparents.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296582641533550594" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; width: 240px; height: 180px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCBeR5gq-RQAR-miInZJgtiIWLy4pvVui4ECBDV8zUuRHHqukGu2znLEHlt9YJFUhyUzwtJaKA7GSayL47P4WMVzSHkzAC014yRnRRjqAIQDhNV5jqAMOBjitSMWZF92hYsd5Mb9DnqTzA/s400/southparkparents.jpg" border="0" /></a>South Park might not be the most appropriate TV for a toddler. But I have this to say about South Park: At least the parents on this show seem to give a fuck about their kids. No matter what horrible shit those kids pull, no matter how mouthy they get, no matter how they curse, or lie, or run away, or see imaginary feces singing Christmas tunes, their parents are there for them when it counts. I can't say the same from what I see of the parents on most traditional children's programming, Compared to them, I might just be Mother of the Fucking Year.<br /><br /><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDcCGRlgAiX8GCyhXTP3ifkvzntGvpZRWQ9vcosGOdiifqCh_pVn64LNsCgLt8WQ6JXFLRqzuXUmviF-MNSY4QQxxpRNOHC4ykcgPpZdUrqJ2kOoj3ktuyl7fLrSMk5HKeb5NDmtfLrta/s1600-h/doraandfriends.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296590420680586498" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 128px; height: 68px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDcCGRlgAiX8GCyhXTP3ifkvzntGvpZRWQ9vcosGOdiifqCh_pVn64LNsCgLt8WQ6JXFLRqzuXUmviF-MNSY4QQxxpRNOHC4ykcgPpZdUrqJ2kOoj3ktuyl7fLrSMk5HKeb5NDmtfLrta/s400/doraandfriends.jpg" border="0" /></a>Take for instance, Dora the Explorer - This poor little girl. Her parents are so selfish that they have basically signed over all their parental rights to a backpack. And even though the thing does contain limitless amounts of useful objects and monies, it's no replacement for, you know, actual emotional support from loving parents. A magic backpack isn't going to wipe her tears, remind her to brush her teeth before bed, or, most importantly, deliver a well-deserved spanking to her bratty ass on occasion. Besides, that backpack is a sycophant. Dora needs a parent not an accessory that answers to her every whim and desire.<br /></div><div> </div><div> </div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-R19PXMSi0ISxTZQ_mQB-YfR-XS9SezFutlCT_IO9PACbzhfIVLLPo_93BqBXXNUpcT9omR1KG8V5IXylTvtGJG69xpmnXJRUnkvQYG2NfYCHpIXscbmqV8Ai5IUbP5JPFvBh3s0Mnffw/s1600-h/dorasfamily.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296583130745159842" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 110px; height: 88px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-R19PXMSi0ISxTZQ_mQB-YfR-XS9SezFutlCT_IO9PACbzhfIVLLPo_93BqBXXNUpcT9omR1KG8V5IXylTvtGJG69xpmnXJRUnkvQYG2NfYCHpIXscbmqV8Ai5IUbP5JPFvBh3s0Mnffw/s400/dorasfamily.jpg" border="0" /></a>Dora's parents suck. Instead of spending quality time with their daughter or perhaps sending her to school once in a while, they send Dora off every day on "adventures", with not so much as a "Be careful". Most of these adventures happen to involve regular encounters with a conniving fox whose sole purpose in life is to fuck with her and steal her belongings. This Swiper character is really my favorite. He steals Dora's shit and then <i>hides</i> it. It's like he doesn't even steal the stuff because he <i>wants</i> it;He steals it for the sheer pleasure of watching Dora and her friends get upset and scramble around trying to find it. And then there's her frequent encounters with the grumpy, old troll who, if you ask me, more closely resembles a grumpy, old child molester. And let's not forget that malevolent witch who taunts and threatens her with ungodly world calamities (e.g. stealing Springtime) unless she and her monkey friend perform dangerous tasks at her behest. </div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt-cohMqn_hQFCCpr71B4jHe4yGZf6Aac2M_naa0g534gpsOjmMNQvAWTy-LQi93E0K5R80IvLCptaYN9sitVwMHEDHxpwjM_M6jS_zRzi3H-w_X0jQoDWTEn-zrlbGWUhgvU5HTuoFURQ/s1600-h/doraswiper.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296585715004815234" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; width: 320px; height: 230px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt-cohMqn_hQFCCpr71B4jHe4yGZf6Aac2M_naa0g534gpsOjmMNQvAWTy-LQi93E0K5R80IvLCptaYN9sitVwMHEDHxpwjM_M6jS_zRzi3H-w_X0jQoDWTEn-zrlbGWUhgvU5HTuoFURQ/s320/doraswiper.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><b>Damn Scary if you ask me</b><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I guess ever since the unmonikered twins were born, Mami and Papi are just too busy to spend more than a second or two at a time with their eldest daughter. Poor Dora has to fend for herself like some sort of feral cat. It's a good thing she has a naked monkey, a cow, a buck-toothed squirrel in a technicolor dream coat, and a marauding marching band of bugs to look after her. She's got quite a menagerie of incompetent guardians but they can never fill that empty place in her heart left by Mami and Papi's absence.<b> </b></div><br /><div>Here's a perfect example of what could happen if you let your daughter be raised by a backpack, a monkey, and a map:</div><br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296586557643301202" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 336px; height: 351px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nYJjZJ5NnFtYntOL9eEhYBG3plx0o7dbNbUO4wHQlz4rCXuwOR9dzWIAVYdT-Zm2RiLyvQDun3N4TVn4GShFlMHZT5flfisY9oeSx6uu87zG9CmpcxIgci3dOqGRSKE4A_M3343JxPv5/s400/doradildo.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div></div>Yeah, she might end up endorsing products that purport to be children's toys but in reality are meant to penetrate woman's vaginas. (Now that I think about it, I might have to get one of these. Dildo incognito)<br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim68cdDaBHZ-JWtonA0vQEpQyHDSk3F76aUxey-GVnf9HRKVQPq19n0mT-DHGqkhSk0nVavqd387_2_XUAFVIPx-TWEes9KviFp0vzlRgwg5FqPO0D8NwG2KiSgdhE3Ld0u1lVsRPXy0tn/s1600-h/go-diego-go.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296588226588157426" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 218px; height: 150px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim68cdDaBHZ-JWtonA0vQEpQyHDSk3F76aUxey-GVnf9HRKVQPq19n0mT-DHGqkhSk0nVavqd387_2_XUAFVIPx-TWEes9KviFp0vzlRgwg5FqPO0D8NwG2KiSgdhE3Ld0u1lVsRPXy0tn/s400/go-diego-go.jpg" border="0" /></a>And look at her cousin Diego. I mean parental neglect must run in this fucking family. Diego lives in a tree house and has constant forays into the jungle with zero adult supervision. His everyday activities there include, but are not limited to, playing with deadly, carniverous animals, hang gliding, white water rafting, and rescuing venomous snakes. In the rare moments his parents are seen onscreen, they appear to be more interested in helping endangered animals than in caring for their own offspring. Diego, though a minor child, is often seen driving a car, riding a jet ski, and travelling by way of zip line. Diego's parents are negligent assholes, and I, for one, think cockroaches are better equipped to raise healthy human beings. <img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296587866809170162" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 400px; height: 300px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggRXJQnnQewnljTLx09ohzJBOseIvIrae6o8JBU795lgXyiApkIPAa1gCT_6Gpl8mXL9mhZr8-WH21bF7gLV2PHMTb0pcI6KrkwAMw1OFYjE9n9xoLDtjuOn0AMaIMTlbUAvntIooj1pX5/s400/diego.jpg" border="0" /></div><br /><div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvXSIY6eOnL89Xm2K7kBm48Tal_utuAxN9mwx-ebAxiGU8Uuv5JLg-ALyhMywzfHX_3bT5kQziUrPFFRCewcWJrhB3n7E-bjzs_fGPShlCtgbxp_JTiR0JoKjlR0hLeNDG6MYGN3XtIBl/s1600-h/calliou.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296588975824304386" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 262px; height: 258px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRvXSIY6eOnL89Xm2K7kBm48Tal_utuAxN9mwx-ebAxiGU8Uuv5JLg-ALyhMywzfHX_3bT5kQziUrPFFRCewcWJrhB3n7E-bjzs_fGPShlCtgbxp_JTiR0JoKjlR0hLeNDG6MYGN3XtIBl/s400/calliou.jpg" border="0" /></a>And what's the deal with Calliou's parents? They look good on paper, true. But when you really stop to think about it, they're the most passive aggressive people you'll ever encounter. When Calliou misbehaves they<br />always make him talk about his feelings. Fuck that shit. What ever happened to good old fashioned ass<br />whoopings? Calliou is a pussy just like his dad. And when are they going to openly acknowledge the fact that<br />their son has a severe case of alopecia? Ignoring it isn't go to make everything okay. Kid is bald. Time to start<br />talking about that shit. If this were South Park, you just know Chef would be singing a little ditty about how<br />"we need to show everyone we care, even if they don't have any hair". Granted, he might end the song talking<br />about the bald nubian goddess he fucked years ago, but at least there's a dialogue about the issue. Calliou's baldness is like the elephant in the fucking room and it's high time they addressed it.<br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DZ_S6MEw9NCqDKxbFb8kUzTXtC97JBxnlHU8L8U1CoUQUwj3GB_j9AAGjJNuw48zbto2gYJ73YLbeQsoEkhXhykZvm9dgG5cYUIj80J-58LmVfErsBFOzFigoXdh9Yg7w1i-vYQfpS1I/s1600-h/fairlybadparents.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296589658957535602" style="margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; float: left; width: 400px; height: 300px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DZ_S6MEw9NCqDKxbFb8kUzTXtC97JBxnlHU8L8U1CoUQUwj3GB_j9AAGjJNuw48zbto2gYJ73YLbeQsoEkhXhykZvm9dgG5cYUIj80J-58LmVfErsBFOzFigoXdh9Yg7w1i-vYQfpS1I/s400/fairlybadparents.jpg" border="0" /></a>Then there's Fairly Oddparents, a show which details the adventures of Timmy Turner and his fairy godparents. And thank the Lord Jesus for those damn fairies, because Timmy's Fairly Negligent Parents seem to be so self-involved that they fail to notice the regular abuse he receives at the <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ZBAIypDHihJZ9e-HIvT2hPQUOU7q3zR3gHvGAJL4l3pi3euKQV0V3Duk5fyuiRDNO-Mws16Egwv_h4IO9htfT0YgB3VK5brVwFHVTaGiDQZWx-MlMsdOUy4IAPjjdL328S7Rd9TFAcPx/s1600-h/fairlyoddvicky.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5296589741061811122" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; width: 128px; height: 115px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0ZBAIypDHihJZ9e-HIvT2hPQUOU7q3zR3gHvGAJL4l3pi3euKQV0V3Duk5fyuiRDNO-Mws16Egwv_h4IO9htfT0YgB3VK5brVwFHVTaGiDQZWx-MlMsdOUy4IAPjjdL328S7Rd9TFAcPx/s400/fairlyoddvicky.jpg" border="0" /></a>hands of a sadistic, psychopathic babysitter named Vicky. </div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DZ_S6MEw9NCqDKxbFb8kUzTXtC97JBxnlHU8L8U1CoUQUwj3GB_j9AAGjJNuw48zbto2gYJ73YLbeQsoEkhXhykZvm9dgG5cYUIj80J-58LmVfErsBFOzFigoXdh9Yg7w1i-vYQfpS1I/s1600-h/fairlybadparents.jpg"></a></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><br /><div></div><div>Dragontales? Should be called "Dragon your ass to family court for a parental competency hearing". Where the hell are these kids' parents when they're taking constant forays into magical lands? Why doesn't anybody know they're gone? I could go and on about the horrible parenting skills and the dysfunctional relationships I see on Nick Jr and Sprout every day. I could write an entire thesis paper on Disney Moms & Dads and their numerous parental transgressions. Maybe one day I will. But I think I've more than proven my point with what I've already laid out here. I rest my case. The verdict? I'm a better parent than these assholes any day of the week. The damages you're going to pay me for talking shit about me for letting Livy watch South Park? Leave me the hell alone about it. And buy me a Starbucks cafe mocha with extra whip cream. Then, and only then, will I grant you an official pardon.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-88719214660146017352009-08-04T15:44:00.003-04:002009-08-04T16:11:01.400-04:00PeanutsFirst of all, I want to say thanks for all the congratulations and well wishes on my pregnancy. I had an ultrasound Friday and here's what happened.<br /><br />The tech says, "I need to get a better look at that..."<br /><br />"What?"<br /><br />"Well...there's three. I don't want to scare you but there's three."<br /><br />"Three what?"<br /><br />"Three babies. I see three babies."<br /><br />"Shut up."<br /><br />"I'm serious."<br /><br />At this point I started shaking and tearing up. God is punishing me for my Hating Fetuses and Children post. He is punishing me for being an awful person.<br /><br />"Are you alright, Gwen?"<br /><br />I nodded and she started checking the gestational sacs for heartbeats. <br /><br />"I'm only seeing 2 sacs with heartbeats. There's no cardiac activity in the third sac."<br /><br />So I finally started breathing a little because twins are better than triplets. But twins? Really? God has a really funny sense of humor. Or he hates my guts. I'm guessing the latter.<br /><br />I'm on vacation now trying to process the news that I have this long, high risk pregnancy in front of me. I already have a baby bump and I'm only 2 months. It sucks because I'm not obviously pregnant, I just look like I have this big beer belly or something. This is not attractive at the beach. I also have an appetite that could support a 700 pound man. '<br /><br />Alright, I'm done talking about my pregnancy. I promise. I'm on vacation until Saturday. I'm going to post a couple old blogs that probably nobody read because I used to have like 3 readers for the longest time.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-39209604513677456672009-07-30T17:14:00.004-04:002009-07-30T18:35:44.730-04:00I Hate Fetuses and ChildrenI haven't been spending much time reading or writing blogs the past few weeks. It's not because I don't love you guys - you know I do. I would tongue kiss all of you, such is the depth of my enduring love. I've been absent and a few of my blog friends even noticed I was missing. I can't even express how special that made me feel. I've been immersed in this personal crisis of pregnancy because while not wholly unexpected it still managed to shock me. I pledge in all seriousness that I will not turn this joint into a pregnancy blog (excepting this post). Mmmm...a joint would be so good right now. For the nausea. Don't worry, I'm not going to smoke one. I can <em>want</em> one, can't I?<br /><br />I've noticed in recent years that people get so up in arms about pregnant ladies doing pretty much anything. And people assume they can get all up in your business about shit when you're pregnant. I remember when I was pregnant with Liv, I would have a cup of coffee in the morning. People would always say, "Is that decaf?" And I'd say, "No. I actually got shots of espresso in this bitch. Pregnancy makes me really tired." People were completely horrified when I said that. It felt good. Now, I didn't actually put extra shots of espresso in there, but that's really not the point. A little caffeine during pregnancy is not going to hurt your baby.<br /><br />I watch that show Hell's Kitchen. One of the girls on there was serving tableside shrimp scampi to the guests. One of the shrimp she served was a little under-cooked and the woman at the table said, "I have to be careful because I'm pregnant." Ok. That's fine. There is a tiny bit of danger in eating raw seafood while pregnant. Does it mean automatic death of a fetus if you consume something raw while you are pregnant? Ummm no. But this girl's competitors seemed to think so. Some of them were actually saying, "She tried to kill a pregnant woman and her baby." I was screaming at my TV, "Shut the fuck up. Pregnant women and their fetuses are not that fragile!"<br /><br />Remember that episode of Weeds where Nancy wasn't sure if her drug kingpin boyfriend was going to kill her for ratting his people out? And she was pregnant with his baby so she went to a sushi place and ate raw fish and had a shot of sake and smoked a cigarette? And then afterward she went to the guy's house and tried to make him shoot her with a gun but instead he kind of raped her but not really because she was all smiling afterwards? That was hot. Anyway, I was reading the forums after the episode aired (because I'm a total TV nerd like that) and people were actually saying shit like, "Maybe she was trying to kill the baby!" And the same thing happened after that episode of Breaking Bad, when Walt's wife smoked a cigarette in the car after a stressful day dealing with a cancer-afflicted husband and a teenager who has cerebral palsy and all the crap that comes from just being pregnant. She just wanted a cigarette to relax and everyone on the forum was like, "Skyler is trying to kill the baby! She's a terrible person and mother!" Like people actually believe that there is a high chance that a baby will die in utero if the mother smokes a single cigarette, drinks one shot of liquor, and has a sushi lunch. Retards.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm not advocating that people smoke, or drink, or overdose on raw shellfish whilst pregnant. I'm just asking, "Can we put things in perspective a little bit here?" I'm sure eating McDonald's food every day of your pregnancy isn't good for your baby either but people wouldn't crucify me in their minds if they saw me eating an Egg McMuffin. My mom smoked and drank while pregnant with me and look how awesome I turned out*. My OB, who is cool as shit, told me that it was really okay to drink 1 glass of wine with dinner or whatever. She said, "We used to give women in pre-term labor IVs of alcohol to stop their contractions." And then she laughed heartily at the memory of OB ER rooms full of drunk, pregnant women.<br /><br />I received so many disapproving glances from people when I sipped my wine at dinner in a restaurant, or at a party, or at my wedding. And I just stared right back at them and said, "Bottom's up!" and dumped it all down my throat. Normally, I liked to savor it but it was so worth it to waste my one glass of wine like that just to piss people off.<br /><br />People are really on my last fucking nerves these days with their righteous indignation. I feel like people have this need to continously prove what amazing human beings they are because they love children. Every day on Facebook I see something about how somebody's mad because a child got hurt or molested. Don't get me wrong, I get upset when things like that happen, too. I just don't feel the need to announce to the world just how concerned I am about the plights of children all over the globe. I want to ask, "Does that make you special somehow? Who doesn't feel indignant about helpless people being abused?" I just hate when people state the obvious and then feel all unique and good about themselves. (In fact when people feel good about themselves, it irritates me. That's why I surround myself with people who have low self-esteem). When someone says, "I hate child molesters", it makes me want to respond, "Really? Because I totally love them. I wish one would move in right next door to me and come within 25 feet of my daughter's pre-school."<br /><br />So now I'm sure I've pissed off everyone. Give me a break - I'm in a delicate condition. And I will be reminding you of that often. I will blame everything on this pregnancy - bad writing, terrible attitude, car theft, cursing at old people, laying on my couch all day, murder. Well, maybe not murder. Unless it's a child.<br /><br />I hope I don't need to tell you that I really don't hate fetuses and children. You know me well enough by now that I don't need to explain my dark, twisted, unfunny sense of humor, right?<br /><br />*well, I'm not really awesome. But I'm also not stupid so that's got to count for something, right?Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7198245786384714430.post-15987084898086985512009-07-29T19:04:00.003-04:002009-07-29T19:18:35.329-04:00PeanutThere is a peanut sized creature in my abdomen wreaking havoc. This thing is sucking the life out of me. Sleep, sleep, all I want is sweet slumber on soft pillows. I am a ravenous wolf. I feel as though I've been deprived of nutrients for years and my body is demanding payment in full. I can't believe that there was a time when I lived with this hunger and actually enjoyed it. Now it is gnawing, distracting, all-consuming. The nurse said, "Eat carbs". I'd be saying "God bless her" if it weren't for the fact that I'm nauseous 24 hours a days and then vomiting ingested carbs. So gross. So my life right now. I want to curl up in a ball and sleep. Wake me up when it's over.<br /><br />If it seems like I'm complaining, then I'm sorry. I realize that there are a lot of people who would do anything to be pregnant right now.Gwenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11098013076632075762noreply@blogger.com22