I think it's horseshit that the doctor won't see me until eight weeks. Today it is six weeks, and I don't know how the heck I'm supposed to wait until my appointment to get all this stuff confirmed. I will not rest until I'm told that all is well. And not by a dear, well-meaning friend trying to blindly soothe me, but by an aloof, overpaid professional with a clipboard.

The biggest symptom I have right now relate to my boobies. They're sore and expanding. I wonder how big they'll end up getting. I might very well find myself graduating from my embarrasingly cavernous A cup into a nice, more age-appropriate B. Won't that be a blast. Oh, the things I'll do with my new breasts. I will definitely have to adjust my wardrobe in order to highlight these girls. I've gone my whole life down-playing my chest area. Look out, world- I'm about to redefine "poor taste" with all of the cleavage bearing outfits I've begun to dream up.

The second biggest symptom (hey, are you still reading this?) has been exhaustion. God damn, am I tired. I can barely keep my eyes open throughout the day, and yesterday I found myself slipping out of the office and taking a nap in my car around two-thirty, just so I could get through the remainder of the afternoon. I've been in bed ridiculously early every night, and on Wednesday, I almost fell asleep while eating dinner. That's the sleepiest I've ever been while stuffing a meatball in my face.

I don't know. This whole thing is bananas. I'm so anxious to find out everything is okay. Have I mentioned how the eight week wait is horseshit?

In other baby-related news (I know, I can't imagine how boring this is for everyone else), my coworker G, who I truly love like a brother, asked me the other day why I hadn't been haven't been smoking anymore. I said, "I quit for good." He asked if there was a reason, and I said no. Then he said, "I thought maybe you were pregnant or something." So, I told him, "Actually, yes, but it's a secret, I haven't even been to the doctor, so keep your mouth shut." Long long pause. And G, who's been married for eight years to a woman who is 39 to his 34, a man who I have relentlessly teased about having to get a move on with the whole baby thing, said, his face a shade of red, "Actually. M's pregnant, too. I haven't told anyone. She's six weeks."

And I am so unbelievably happy for them. I can't even explain how overwhelmed with emotion I feel, and how fricking honored I am to be the first one he's told. Although, can I just say, G told me that they nailed down the day that he and M had conceived, and it's pretty much the same day that I would have. That's creepy. Kind of nice that we'll both have kiddies around the same time, but, man. Creepy.

M already had two doctor's visits and an ultrasound, and she's six weeks, too. Horseshit. Perhaps they're more on top of this process when you're 39 versus 29, but, man, could I use a little reassurance. All in due time. Patience, patience, patience....

So, I'm pregnant. I guess I feel comfortable broadcasting it on my blog because the people that I am currently hiding it from- the family, the co-workers, etc- don't know that Under My Thumb exists. I'm barely pregnant. I'll be six weeks on Friday. I have my doctor's appointment the day before Thanksgiving. Maybe the doctor will look at me with a cocked eyebrow and say, "Yeah, what? You're totally not. Get out of my office and stop wasting my time." And I will shamefully close my legs, take off my paper gown, and haphazardly throw on my clothes through a hot blur of tears and nausea.

I know you're not supposed to tell people this early, but I haven't been able to refrain from telling it to a select few. I'm so terrified that I'm jinxing this whole thing by opening my big fat mouth, but then I thought- what if something did happen? Wouldn't I want the support of my friends? Wouldn't I maybe want to write a blog entry about it? So here I am, like a jackass.

I want to remember how this feels- how it alternates between excitement, horror, and nothingness at all. How giving up alcohol and coffee and my few cigarettes here and there has been nothing short of heartbreaking. How I am sometimes fearful because I don't feel like I am "glowing" like I should be. How I can't even believe that I have a person inside of me, at least a speck of a person, who could grow up to be any number of things, equally awesome and awful. The power is ridiculous. It's unfathomable, really.

The funny thing is that my neighbor, Heather, is pregnant, too. She's three weeks ahead of me. It's so wierd, like maybe part of a master plan. That our kids will be the same age and can maybe grow up together. Chris, however, seems to think that her kid is going to pick on our kid, that we are fated to have a shy, nerdy child who gets teased and bullied and picked on to no end. He's probably right. But wouldn't it be something if our child was the bully, the little terror, the monster of the neighborhood? What would we even do, I wonder? We're not equipped to deal with such things. We're non-confrontational, we like to do our teasing behind people's backs, not to their faces.

Who knows. Who knows anything. I will tell you one thing, though. My dad knows. He doesn't actually know, he hasn't actually been told, but we visited my parents on Saturday and he stared at me for a long time before finally saying, "You look different." He wouldn't let it drop. I looked different, prettier somehow. He even said it to my sister after we left. I guess he's got a paternal instinct about these things, a heightened sense due to my mother's lowered sense. My mother, you see, asked me on the same visit how old I am, if I was 31 or 32. I'm 29. The damn woman gave birth to me a very specific number of years ago and has no idea how long ago that was. I don't want to be a mother who can't remember how old her kids are. If there's one thing that I'll ask for now, aside from a safe and healthy pregnancy and child, it'll be that, when I'm a mother, I'm not a moron.

Tuesday night- faintly, faintly positive. Wednesday morning, faintly positive. Wednesday night, faintly positive. Thursday morning, holy mama definitely positive. Today, still very very positive.

I was rooting for the fugitive, and I was disappointed when he turned out to be a pathetic schmuck. He started off so well. He was clever and brilliant, disarming two guards and escaping captivity while on his way to the court house to stand trial for robbing banks. He took their clothes and their guns and the car. He hijacked a civilian's car in the parking lot of a grocery store, ditched the car in the next town over and managed to elude the SWAT team that had taken chase. By the time night fell ten hours later, I thought for sure that he was gone. Surely, he'd be halfway to Mexico, or Canada, or even the Jersey shore. Imagine my disappointment when, the next morning, it was reported that he'd hijacked another car no more than five miles away from where he'd taken the first car. And then, even though he'd hijacked the car in a spot right by the highway- I mean, seriously, there was an exit ramp RIGHT THERE- he went ahead and robbed another bank only ten miles away. Another hour or so, and he was apprehended about four or five miles away from the bank. While everyone in the suburbs breathed a collective sigh of relief- the schools and offices were allowed off lockdown, the banks reopened their doors, and women at grocery stores could once again walk to their car with the familiar old carelessness us suburbanites are used to- I felt like I had just watched the worst movie I'd ever seen. He was supposed to foil the cops. He was supposed to escape to another country, to another state, or at least another fucking ten mile radius. Instead, I invested all this time into watching the news reports, reading the online updates, and saying glib things like, "They're wasting their time, he's long gone" when presented with the facts that the same old cops in the same old three or four towns were all on high alert. Instead, the clever villain in my backwards hero tale turned out to be a retarded fucking idiot who, while displaying so much promise in the wee early hours of the game, quickly lost his senses and couldn't even figure out how to leave the state. Despite having guns and cars. Despite being the most average looking white man you'd ever seen, the kind of man you wouldn't look at twice even if you were looking specifially for him. Despite having escaped in the kinds of suburbs that are just riddled with major highways. And back roads and front roads and side roads. What a waste of my time. What a let down.

I'm starting to have a real issue with Facebook. And yet I can't stop logging in, doing status updates, commenting, the whole nine yards. I really want to cut the ties, because I've decided it's unhealthy for me to be constantly snooping on others and, let's face it, comparing other lives to mine. I've also decided that I am not sure I want to be part of this whole "tweeting," limited character communication culture. I'm old school. I like blogs and emails. And yet I am not of strong will. I am weak. I will most likely update my Facebook page to this affect at some point today.

The internet sets you up for failure. The problem is that, upon initiating a search- a query, if you will- nine out of ten of the sites in the search results will be not only completely unhelpful, but, furthermore, written by morons exactly like you, only dumber. The very worst is when you type in a question and get a Yahoo! Answers result. A WikiAnswer might be just as bad. You can't trust other people to answer your questions. You can and should only trust actual articles from actual, accredited associations or publications. The problem is trying to find an actual web page that you can believe in. They are few and far between, unless you are searching for a map to Providence, Rhode Island, a Tetris-style game to pass the time, or an online store when you can buy a Silver Bullet in the peace, quiet, and privacy of your own home.

In "trying" to get pregnant, I have done a lot of "research" on the internet. I put the word "research" in quotation marks, because I've come to the conclusion that I've actually learned very little. I may have even done enough "research" to cause me to actually unlearn a few things. "But what's there to learn?" you, the slightly bored reader, may be asking. "Don't you just do the deed and then, boom, nature takes its course? Don't sixteen year old girls get pregnant all time just by LOOKING at a boy?" Well, that's true to an extent. It's very easy to get pregnant when pregnancy is a completely foreign notion and the very last thing on your to-do list. But when you put forth the effort? When you track ovulation and pay attention to every little hint and clue your somewhat deceptive, almost-thirty year old body puts forth? Forget about it. It ain't going to happen.

"Researching" on the internet gets you nowhere for the following reason. The women on the internet who are posting little stories and tips from their own adventures in procreation are all neurotic, hateful, bitter hags whose sole goal in life is to spread their own infertility-related misery by convincing the reader that SOMETHING MAJOR IS SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH YOUR BODY and that if you so much as have half a cup of coffee during the 2WW (that's two week wait in conception lingo- more on that later), you will kill whatever little bundle of cells may or may not have already started the division game. That having an occasional smoke or a big glass of wine while TTC (trying to conceive) will render your reproductive parts as useless as that old lawn mower from the mid-80s that your half-retarded uncle gave you as a gesture that said not "Here's a little gift for your new house" as much as "Here. You figure out how to throw this away." These women type away in the dark of night and subversively attempt to convince you that because you get a certain kind of discharge (sorry) on the fifth day of your cycle, your womb should from here on out be referred to the "Infertile Crescent," and that it's best if you resign yourself to the fact that you will have a childless life and a marriage that will most likely end in a resentment fueled murder-suicide.

The women on the internet, they will drive you nuts. You will have a legitimate question about the luteal phase (look it up), and, next thing you know, the women on the internet will have you convinced that, biologically-speaking, you might just be a man.

Then there's the lingo. When you start reading about conception on the internet, you will find that you can't decipher half of the things these dumb ass shrews are saying. Here's a list of acronyms that I have encountered in my "studies."

TTC (trying to conceive)
2WW (two week wait)
DH (dear husband)
BFP (big fat positive)
AF (aunt flo)
DPO (days past ovulation)
CF (cervical fluid)
BD (baby dance, i.e., sex)
GFY (go fuck yourself)

I may have made that last one up.

I suppose the prevalence of these moronic acronyms should have tipped me off that I wasn't getting the best scientific advice that ye olde internet had to offer. Unfortunately, because I've worked myself into several crazed frenzies over the past few months, it didn't occur to me until just recently that maybe I shouldn't be taking baby-making advice from the kind of women who have the same mindset as a teenaged girl texting her BFF Madison about LOL and FML and WTF and TMI. Now, I'm an intelligent woman. In fact, I have a very high opinion of my brain, if you must know. I think it's tops. So, why have I been taking the word of simpleton idiots as GOSPEL?

Because it's been a rough summer. Because I thought it wouldn't take more than a month to do this whole thing. Because I thought, for sure, by now, my show would be on the road, so to speak. But the fact of the matter is that it's not, and it might take six months, or a year, or even longer if I continue to apply such an insane amount of pressure to the task at hand, so to speak. And especially if I continue to Google every twinge, nuance, fear, hope, and question. If I continue to turn into the kind of woman that I normally despise and shun.

So, after a rougher than normal week, I've decided to give up internet "research," cold turkey. I've also decided to put this whole baby-making thing on a different burner, a back burner. Don't get me wrong, I do still hope it happens soon, but I'll be okay if it takes a while. I'm going to concentrate on de-stressing myself and focusing on me, not a tiny ball of cells that may or may be floating around somewhere inside me. I'm not going to let the calendar dictate my life, both my indoors and outdoors life, if you catch my drift. I'm not going to drive my husband insane with a list of evenings that he has to be home for the night. And I'm going to drink my coffee, god dammit, and my wine, until I know for sure there's a reason to stop.

Oh, the internet. It's evil. It can convince you that you're infertile, that your mole is most likely a cancer that has spread to six different organs, that 2012 is going to end the world in a fiery explosion, and that the Check Engine light in your car means it's time to buy a new car. When everyone knows that the Check Engine light usually means that everything thing is mostly okay, and that you shouldn't waste your valuable time or money trying to diagnose what's wrong. No need to panic. The car still runs.

Take one thing from this blog entry: don't trust the hags on the internet. Me included.

This little girl in the Ally commercial, the one who DOESN'T get the real pony, is me when I was a kid. Truly, it is uncanny- especially since she gets the short end of the stick. It's okay, little Jackie. One day you'll have enough money and you can buy your own damn pony. Except you won't buy a pony. Because life is cold and harsh and makes you feel dead inside to the point where not even a real live pony can make you feel okay again.

So here's something interesting that happened. The other day, I left my space heater on at work when I left for the day. The building is just too cold during the day with the air conditioner cranked all the way to subzero temps, and I often have to keep my space heater on to avoid catching pneumonia. I leave my space heater on all the time but, I'll admit, have often pondered over the irony of a three-time winner of the annual fire safety poster contest in grade school (okay, I never WON, but I placed, which is close enough) breaking the number two rule after "No smoking in bed." You never leave a space heater on high while unattended. Never. But, still, I do it almost every day.

Around ten o'clock at night, the alarms all went off in the building, and the manager who lives closest was called to investigate. She got there at the same time as the police, who went into the building only to find that my space heater had set a small, smoldering fire in my plastic garbage can. The way it was described to me was that, while there were no shooting flames per se, there was smoke and embers. They unplugged my heater, did whatever they needed to do to take care of the smoky situation in my plastic garbage can, and then the manager issued an apology to the police for wasting tax payer dollars.

I came into work the next day to find the area underneath my desk in complete disarray. "What happened to my desk?" I asked Gigi, who sits next to me and had already been at work for thirty minutes by the time I casually rolled in.

"Um, you almost burned the building down," she said, and then she told me the story that everybody else had already heard that morning. For a moment, I sat there, stunned. For yet another moment I sat there, daydreaming, and wondered what kind of compensation package we employees could have received had there be an actual, devastating fire. If there had been an out and out fire, would they have traced it to my space heater and thus to me? Would I still get a compensation package? It would have, after all, been a completely innocent mistake on the part of the kind of woman who is usually very careful about fire safety and never, ever smokes in bed.

Regardless, everything is a-okay, and after apologizing a few times to the manager who had responded to the call (and making sure that my direct boss never had to be privy to the situation), I sat back down at my desk, plugged in my semi-defective space heater, turned it on to high, and started my usual morning business.

I bought $5 worth of Mega Millions lottery tickets for tonight. Chris is fond of telling me that, statistically, I have the same chances of winning the lotto regardless of whether or not I buy a ticket. I'm fond of telling him that you have to in it to win it and that he should go f himself. Usually, I'll admit, I am the kind of person that doesn't bother with ventures that yield such terrible odds. Lately, however, I am feeling as if desperate times call for desperate measures, and the only way I can think to escape my current situations is to purchase a lottery ticket and hope beyond hope that my numbers come up.

Will I go to work tomorrow if I win the lotto? I think I would work just long enough for my check from the lottery commission to clear, because heaven forbid I come in to work, tell everyone off, and then find out that the lotto is broke and my winning ticket will not be honored. What a kick in the teeth that scenario would be.

I have decided, though, that I'm going to play out the rest of today's work day on the assumption that I'm going to win big tonight. That means not doing any more work and having an overtly clear disregard for any inquiries or instructions that come my way. I like the way this attitude feels. And, strangely enough, it's not the worst feeling in the world to know that, regardless of whether or not I do actually win tonight, my presence here at the office tomorrow most likely won't be requested or required anyway.

We finally went to one of those Mystery Dinners, the kind where actors intermingle with diners and eventually somebody gets shot by a gun loaded with blanks. It was really cool, and I'd love to do it again. Unfortunately, I did not solve the mystery, but this is not to reflect negatively on my powers of logic and deduction. Instead, let me just say that although the mystery made sense once the solution was revealed, it was constructed in such a way that it was damn near impossible to solve with making several far fetched assumptions first. Nonetheless, it was a great time.

The weekend, which was spent at the resort that hosted this dinner show, was full of several mysteries. The most memorable mystery may be the Case of the Stinky Water, which I've kind of solved, but not really. The water from the faucet in our hotel room smelled so rank and rotten that I gagged from just turning on the water and breathing normally while sixteen inches away from the tap. At first I didn't realize that it was the water itself that smelled so badly, and I made the ever crucial mistake of beginning to brush my teeth without continuing a proper investigation. I just about threw up in my mouth from the taste of what I can only describe as bad eggs and the arm pit sweat of an athletic bum. The solution, I suppose, to the mystery is that it's just really bad well water. But the larger part of they mystery is why an expensive resort would not DO SOMETHING about what is potentially a deal breaker. Chris and I could not even stomach the idea of showering in such awful water the next morning. So, instead, we got out of bed, wiped off our faces with dry towels, brushed our teeth with a bit of bottled water, and went downstairs to a fancy brunch whilst reeking a bit like winos from all of our drinking the night before. We are one classy couple, we are.

Overall, aside from the obstacles to cleanliness, the weekend was pretty great. Good mystery dinner, drinking and dancing afterwards at one of the bars in the resort, and even a dip in the pool. Strangely enough, the pool water smelled just fine. Yes, very mysterious indeed.

Earlier this week, an old man pulled into the bank parking lot and attempted to brake as he maneuvered into a parking spot. Instead, his foot got tangled up in his iPod cord, and he ended up somehow accelerating and smashing into the bank sign.


This would not be an amusing story if he had hurt or killed someone. But he didn't, so it is. What makes it so amusing is that after decimating the bank sign, he backed up, put the car in park, and then came into the bank lobby and calmly made a deposit before approaching a banker to tell him that his foot had become entangled in what I can only assume is a ridiculously long and unsafe iPod cord and, yes, he rammed his car into the sign.

I'm baking bread today. I wanted to do the whole thing from scratch, but I couldn't find yeast in the grocery store. So, I got one of those pre-mixed kits with the flour and stuff and the little yeast packet. The mix is made by a company in Oregon and costs about a dollar more than a good loaf of fresh baked bread at the store. Nonetheless, cost-effectiveness aside, I've been wanting to do this for a while now. I must say though, even cheating with the prepackaged mix, bread making is exhausting. There's a lot of kneading and pounding and waiting for the dough to rise and double in size. I've been making bread for about two and a half hours now, and I've yet to even bake the damned thing.

Maybe exhausting isn't the right term for bread making. Let me think for a minute. It's a process that is basically fraught with fear and tension. What if the dough doesn't rise? What if I didn't knead enough? What if I screwed up royally by purchasing the ten whole grain mix when I generally don't even like whole grains? It's a lot of nail biting, a lot of second guessing, a lot of wondering. And, actually, the whole process reminds me of another kind of process. Maybe that's why they call it "a bun in the oven." Anyway, what is it the kids say these days? That's right- TMI.

This is my last Sunday of being 28, and here I am, spending a gorgeous summer day inside, baking bread and reading. But fear not, my life's going to be much more exciting tomorrow. Carole and I (and her dad, the ever-adorable Steve!) are going to the Tori Amos concert tomorrow evening, to be followed by a leisurely Tuesday of hanging downtown and finally checking out the new modern wing of the art institute. I can't wait. I need to break up the routine a little, and tomorrow and Tuesday should be just what the doctor ordered. Now excuse me while I go peer at a ball of dough to see if it's made any progress in the rising department.

My cousin had her baby this week! She gave birth to an 8 pound something-ounce boy which she named Zacharias Joseph. I think "Zacharias" is a biblical name, or at least the original, unbastardized versions of Zachariah (which could also be biblical?) and, my favorite of the three, the greatly bastardized Zachary. Really, though, what do I know about all this, I don't read the bible and have yet to name something that's not a car. Anyway, she was in labor for twenty-four hours before she finally agreed to let them to do a c-section to extract the babe from where it had lodged itself in her cervix. I never thought I'd write a blog entry that involved my cousin's cervix. This has truly been a strange week.

Twenty-four hours of labor, though! Can you imagine? I sure can't. She kept pushing and pushing in a grand attempt to do the whole natural child-birth thing (no epidural, she said!), and then finally succombed to going under the knife when there was no other option other than to let the kid grow up- go to kindergarten, learn to drive, get married- from the tight embrace of her cervix. Here are the key differences between me and my cousin: I would never get to the point where twenty-four hours of labor had gone by before allowing my doctor to cut me open. After maybe fifteen, twenty minutes of unsuccessful pushing, I'd demand that they just get the kid out via c-section. I don't have the patience or groin muscles for that sort of thing. Furthermore, I'm planning on not only having an epidural but also having it well in advance of going into labor- like, two months-and then keep having it administered well after the kid is finally born- like, eighteen years. Also, I will not be sending text messages after I have begun the labor process. That's just craziness! I received two text messages from her while she was in the middle of all that, and I'm half-surprised that she didn't update her Facebook page during the ordeal. We are all way too connected these days.

I am super stoked to have a new baby in the family, though, and I am truly happy for my cousin. I won't be able to see little Zach Attack until Christmas, though, because Lisa lives in Virginia and is not coming "home" until the holidays. I will definitely have to make a big impression on this kid during our annual/semi-annual visits. I want him to know, and to always remember, that he's got a weirdo cousin/aunt-type-person in Illinois who's delirious with joy that he even exists.

I have been coughing like crazy lately. I wake up in the middle of the night coughing, and sometimes, during the day, I'll suddenly erupt into a fit of coughs so violent that it threatens to turn into explosive vomiting. It hasn't, yet, but there's been a few very close calls that have fortunately graduated only into very raunchy, hearty burps. The worst is when this happens at work. The very worst is when this happens at work while I'm on the phone or in mid-conversation with my boss. Ladylike!

I do know why I'm coughing so much- it's not like this is a Mystery Cough that can only be solved by a very expensive team of Ailment Detectives (i.e., doctors). You see, I have quit smoking. Just about. Here's the deal- I haven't bought a pack of smokes in over a month now, but I do still smoke occasionally (one or two a day, tops, only when peer pressure is applied). However, for all intents and purposes, I am officially considering myself a non-smoker. I think it's okay if I call myself this despite the occasional lapses. I'm only human, right? My body has certainly moved into non-smoking mode, as the cravings have all but subsided.

Furthermore, this ridiculous amount of coughing is only proof that my body is in non-smoking mode. According to several internet websites that utilize very poor citation, my cilia is growing back, and that's what's causing the coughing. Cilia is one of my favorite medical words, along with bilirubin, colitis, and coccyx. So, in comes my cilia, out goes the cough/burp/almost-vomit.

The thing about quitting smoking, though, is that you kind of feel like you're losing a friend. A shitty but somehow lovable friend who's wonderful to your face but then stabs you in the back with cancer, emphysema, and the ever-growing expense of the nicotine sin tax. There were a lot of good times with smoking, though. We went to bars together, had lingering breaks at work together, and got through long car rides together. Smoking calmed me down when human beings couldn't. Smoking helped me kill time and accompanied me on adventures in making small talk and meeting people. Smokers chit chat with each other outside of bars in ways that non-smokers could never do inside of bars. Smoking creates a bond- it says, "So you're an idiot, too, eh? Let's be buds."

Alas, it's over. I feel good. Confident in a way that I haven't in a very long time. I smell great, too- no more of that subtle smoking scent that crawls over my body just under the surface of my fruity body spash spray.

I'm also trying to give up caffeine. Kind of. That's a relationship that I'm not ready to sever just yet. I merely loved smoking. I'm fucking obsessed with caffeine; I stalk it, dream about it, have an unhealthy, deliciously overpowering infatuation with it that rivals how Glenn Close felt about Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction. Breaking up with caffeine will not be easy. I will not be ignored by it, ever.

The summer is half over, and I've barely spent any time at all outside on our expensive new patio. I figured it would go down like this- I can really identify with that Smiths song that has the line "spending warm summer days indoors... writing frightening verse to a buck-tooth girl in Luxembourg." Okay, I can't identify so much with the writing verse to a Luxembourg chick, but you get the drift.

Actually, I can identify with almost all of that Smiths song, which I believe is called "Ask" as in "I hate to ask, but can you check the inside of my pants and tell me what size they are?" Picture that being asked by Chris, to me, inside the pants section of the Target. Anyway, if for some reason you don't know that song, you should go listen to it. I'll wait here.

The thing about spending time on the patio, though, is that there's nothing to do out there. We have four of those canvas, collapsible sports chairs and half a table. We're getting the other half sometime soon, but I'm not in a hurry. We don't have a pool, we don't have one of those outdoor speaker systems designed as a bunch of rocks, we don't have anything interesting to look at except the other houses. So, all there is to do is sit. And read, I suppose, but I'd rather read indoors where I don't have to sit in a collapsible canvas chair. I guess some people get pleasure from just sun-bathing, but I'm Mediterranean. There's no need for that tanning nonsense. And what am I supposed to do while I'm sun-bathing? Just relax and think? Thinking is not relaxing.

We have had a few friends over a couple times this summer so far, but every time we've sat out on the patio, it's been because we've felt we've had to, because it's there. And without saying it out loud, we've always been pretty sure that we, and our visitors, are all thinking, "How much longer do I have to sit in this uncomfortable chair before I can go back in where the booze, the snacks, the music, and the Nintendo are?"

A couple times I've come home from work and have thought, "Maybe I should go sit outside and chill a bit before I start on dinner." But that thought is always passing, because, again, what am I going to do out there? And which direction do I face? The guy who lives behind us and to the left, he always sits outside and faces our house. I get the impression that he's watching us, as a matter of fact. His eyes burn into me like two lit cigars being pressed into the back of my skull. And I don't want to aggravate the situation by sitting out there and staring back. I don't want a stare off. And I'm not interested in staring at anyone else, either. So I just start on dinner instead, every once in a while glancing out the window at the patio and thinking, "Damn that's a nice patio we got."

Spent last weekend in Philly/New Jersey attending the world's longest wedding, seeing the sights, and hanging out with a bunch of smart people from Cal-Tech. We drove there and back. While cramming two fourteen hour car rides in four days didn't seem like a bad idea at the time we came up with it, let me tell you that I don't think we'll be doing THAT again. We barely survived, subsisting on fifteen year old music, free visitor center maps and brochures, energy drinks, and mindless chatter. And we made a vow to each other that we will never, under any circumstances, drive on the Pennsylvania Turnpike again. I think we made that vow six years ago when we drove out to Virginia, but this time we mean it. It's expensive to drive on that mother (thirty bucks just one way across), it seems to be perpetually under construction, and Pennsylvania- well, it's just too wide and boring.

We arrived on Thursday night and headed over to Dee's house for a kind of rehearsal dinner party. We ate Indian food, which for me was kind of a mixed bag, tastewise, politely refused Henna tattoos, and then sat around on the porch and listened to Dee's father talk about a myriad of topics including the unemployment rate, the best way to purchase a car, and Germany. It was a pretty nice time, and Dee's family was very hospitable. I especially appreciated the way people jumped in to explain the food when I stared at it rather dumbly. I've never really eaten Indian food before. I had no idea what I was looking at. I still couldn't tell you what it was that I ate. Oh, me. So uncultured.

Friday, we headed into Philly and saw the Liberty Bell (much smaller than I would have thought, totally cracked), a bunch of stuff relating to Ben Franklin, and almost went through Independence Hall but were too easily discouraged by the complicated ticketing system. We ate cheesesteaks from Jim's, walked along South Street, and then found ourselves deciding to see a movie since our bodies still had bed sores from the drive in, and it was much too painful to keep walking. We saw Food, Inc, which I highly recommend. It's already changed the way I eat.

Friday night, we hung out with some of Chris' old friends from Cal-Tech. They were all very nice, and it was great to see this one guy, Matt, again. However, I must say that there was something about this particular group of people that made me feel rather dull and uninteresting. The group included physicists and scientists and geologists and computer geeks and lawyers and even the daughter of a senator (which I thought was super cool), and then there's me. I work at a bank. I'm smart, but I'm by no means brilliant. The most interesting things about me can be directly related to the television shows I watch. I don't know- I was jealous of these people and their... accomplishments? Aspirations? Whatever.

Saturday was the wedding. Sweet fancy moses. First there was a Hindu ceremony, which lasted well over two hours. Then there was a break for lunch. After lunch, there was a Catholic ceremony, but the Catholic ceremony was delayed by an hour due to the bride not being ready. Have you ever met a bride so nice she's married twice... in one day? Now I can say that I have. After the Catholic ceremony, we had cocktails and appetizers and then went to the reception itself. I must say that the wedding was very lavish and, despite all the sitting and waiting, it was probably one of the nicest weddings that I've been to. Food and drink were phenomenal, and the whole affair was held at an upscale complex called The Mansion. Each part of the wedding took place in a different part of The Mansion, which was kind of cool. Very grand.

And then, Sunday, the drive home. I almost cried tears of joy when we pulled into our driveway after the hella long drive home. Why is it that the best part of any vacation is usually, for me, the moment of relief when my house is in sight? Maybe loving home is one of the many things that makes me dull and uninteresting- maybe I should be more interested in making the best out of a drive across a portion of the country, maybe I should see everything as an adventure to be embraced and learned from. I guess I did learn something, though. I learned how to use cruise control. Can you believe that I've never used cruise control before this weekend? Oh how I've been missing out.

Owning a house is hard work. Actually, owning the house is pretty easy- you just write a check to the bank every month and occasionally moan to whoever will listen about your property taxes. Anyone can do that. It's MAINTAINING the house that's hard. Okay, correction. It's not the maintenance that we're struggling with, because we never seem to get to the actual point of doing any work, but the THINKING about the MAINTENANCE- well, that's positively draining.

Let's talk about my lawn for a second. The phrase "growing like a weed" doesn't make any sense until you have a yard that you notice only, say, once a week. My lawn and I are in that level of our relationship where we're somewhere between "perfect strangers" and "barely on speaking terms." Sometimes I glance over it while I'm pulling in or out of my driveway. Sometimes I do this and I think, "Someone should really do something about all that." But, most of the time, I'm too focused on getting out of or into the house that our lawn could be covered with trillion dollar bills and I'd walk right past it. While complaining about my property taxes.

This week, though, I happened to notice the lawn one day and was overtaken with a wild panic. Suddenly, my lawn had become like a neglected child that DCFS could come over and claim. Could my lawn be placed into protective custody? Be placed next to a better home with caring, thoughtful homeowners who would take time out of their action-packed, couch-laden evenings to actually mow the damn thing or pull out some - not even all, just some- of the weeds? Would I have visitation with my lawn? And, if they did grant visitation, would I ever actually go visit it? Of course I wouldn't. It's just a lawn, and one that I don't even care about that much.

It's disgusting, though, to think that our lawn may be the shame of the neighborhood. I always counted on having an unkempt lawn, because I knew landscaping could never possibly be a priority in my already rich and full life. But, I thought for sure that someone in the neighborhood, anywhere in the neighborhood, would have a worse lawn than us. To be fair, I haven't walked around the entire neighborhood, because I am pretty lazy. But, judging from what I've seen from my car, when I've bothered to look, everyone else has a neat and manicured lawn. Everyone cares, but us.

But, like I've said, it's hard work thinking about maintaining things. Hard work imagining mowing the lawn and yanking the weeds. It's exhausting, and nobody told me it would be this exhausting, and that's why I'm going straight for the couch when I get home, to unwind.

It's the little things that make me snap. Yesterday, Chris made himself a grilled cheese and pear sandwich for dinner. He did this after he came home to discover that I had purposefully, and gleefully, devoured his gourmet mac and cheese leftovers from TGI Fridays. I watched him make his grilled cheese and pear sandwich- watched as he layered the sandwich with two slices of cheese, some sliced pear, two more slices of cheese, some sliced pear, and then two more slices of cheese. Six slices of cheese and what amounted to about two-thirds of a whole pear on two flimsy slices of white bread. He did this layering calmly and methodically, and as I watched, I was overtaken with a kind of rage. THAT'S TOO MUCH CHEESE, I wanted to scream in his face. IT'S NOT EVEN GOING TO TASTE GOOD! IT'S GOING TO FALL APART! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF? I CAN HEAR YOUR ARTERIES CLOGGING EVEN AS YOU STAND THERE MAKING IT. YOU ARE SO UNBELIEVABLY STUPID.

I didn't scream any of that. I managed to refrain from screaming, because I have excellent self control, and instead, I simply stated all of the above in my regular, everyday, thinly coated with bitchiness, speaking voice. That's too much cheese. It's not even going to taste good. It's going to fall apart. Are you trying to kill yourself? I can hear your arteries clogging even as you stand there making it. You are so unbelievably stupid.

And Chris, good-natured as always, just responded, "No way, it's awesome." And he took the sandwich, in all of its disgusting, floppy, oozing glory, along with a gigantic glass of red wine, upstair so that he could enjoy his dinner in peace while he watched the Cubs game. I stayed downstairs thinking about him enjoying his dinner- enjoying life, really- and I just fumed. I got angry and angrier. It was partly that I thought he was digging his own grave with every extra, unneccessary slice of cheese. Partly because I love him and worry about him and want to make sure he's taking care of himself. But, mostly, it was because he seemed so happy preparing his delicious little dinner. And I couldn't stand it. How do people walk around on this planet being happy with such small things while all around us, the world is falling apart? How can you deal with all the idiots at work and in traffic and- let's face it- at home without just fucking losing it? And how can you not be pissed off that someone ate the leftovers that they knew you were specifically saving for yourself? HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO SO EASILY RECOVER FROM SUCH A THING?

Here are the things that you should take from today's blog entry.

* I'm a miserable person and do not deserve love.
* I am easily angered for no good reason.
* Chris should probably just divorce me and remarry someone nice and sweet while he's still young.
* I will eat your leftovers without feeling even remotely sorry about it.
* Six slices of cheese is too much cheese for one sandwich.

"My Sister's Keeper" is coming soon to a theater near me. The novel was one of the most heart-wrenching books I've ever read, right up there with that one Sweet Valley High saga that told the story of the Wakefields over several generations. There was something about that Young Adult novel that really turned my faucet. Anyway, in honor of "My Sister's Keeper" coming to theaters, there was an article about the author, Jodi Picoult, in the NY Times today. And the article ended with these two sentences:

"In so many of her books children seem like more work than most ordinary people can handle. If Picoult's fiction means to say anything, it is that parenting undoes us perhaps more than it fulfills, and it makes a thousand little promises it can never keep."

Man oh man. It is very true of her work, but is it very true of life? So many of Picoult's characters have children that they cannot handle or partially do not want. So many mothers abandon their babies in search of an easier life. And, as I enter the final year of my twenties, the year in which I hope to make a baby, I can't help but see these two sentences and think, "Am I fooling myself? Is there something to be learned in the fiction of Jodi Picoult?"

Probably not. I think, at moments, I may be talking myself out of this whole "thing" out of fear that something's going to go terribly wrong, or terribly right. So, reading those two sentences gave me pause. Yet again.

In other movie news, I watched a documentary over the weekend called "Helvetica." It's about the font, Helvetica. I'm not sure why I chose to watch it in the first place- it sounds terribly boring, doesn't it? In fact, it was wildly interesting. So interesting, that I'm eagerly awaiting the movie about Times New Roman that is coming out sometime next year. You think I'm joking. I'm not.

Since I'm on Facebook now and can record the inane minutiae of my life almost simultaneously with the occurrences of said minutiae, I haven't felt that much of a need to blog. Entire paragraphs and blog entries have now been whittled down to one or two quick sentence fragments. And there it is- what's going on in a nutshell without having to exert any actual, typerly effort. There you go.

The thing about Facebook is that I kind of love it, kind of hate it. The instant gratification of spying on my friends is pretty great, I will admit. Oh, look, so and so just closed on a house. So and so's sister made a real kick ass pasta salad. So and so seems to have gone from "in a relationship" to "just fucking around, yo." But the hate is there, strong as ever. The same quick updates that I love, I also hate. While I certainly have my fair share of boring "Jackie is doing her taxes" type posts, I get quickly irritated by everyone else's dashed off posts. There are things I need to know and things I don't. Here is a post I just read. Names and stuff have been changed, but you'll catch the drift.

Sarah Smith had a very productive day! Cleaned up the living room, went by Melanie's apartment, shopping at Dominicks, back to Melanie's place, then built a book shelf! Now chilling at home! Tomorrow: washing the windows, cable guy, and then shopping for a futon.

Seriously. At least make your Facebook updates mildly interesting. Snorefest, yo! Add a little something something to keep my interest. I don't give a fuck about cleaning up the living room, building the book shelf, and futon shopping. Not even in the slightest! But, here's something I might care about.

Sarah Smith hates her life and will likely seduce the cable guy tomorrow just as a way to break up the day.

Now that's worthy of my time! Or how about:

Sarah Smith is building a bookshelf while wearing a blindfold and having a stiff drink.

Sarah Smith slipped on a banana peel at Dominicks.

Sarah Smith had a very productive day but still feels the urge to choke herself a little.

I don't know. So, there's the super boring posts and then there are the posts designed to make others envious of how great you are. Such as:

Sarah Smith gets hit on all the time!

Sarah Smith just got complimented on how funny she is.

Which is ironic, due to the complete lack of humor in said post, wouldn't you say?

Then, the melancholic posts designed solely to beg further poking and prodded (pointed out in a succinct, interesting little post by my pal Brian).

Sarah Smith will be okay with time.

Sarah Smith is being strong. Today's a new day.

Sarah Smith is hanging in there and wishing upon a star.

Also, we can't forget song lyrics!

Sarah Smith This is radio nowhere. Is there anyone alive out there? This is radio nowhere.

Sarah Smith Goodbye ruby Tuesday. Who could hang a name on you?

There you go. Love, then hate. Then hate. Then love. But boy is Facebook convenient. I haven't spoken to any of my friends face to face in weeks! And there's no need to! My hermit ass is in seventh heaven.

Kind of.

So my itty bitty little sister and her boyfriend went down to Mexico for a vacation, and last night, they got engaged! I forget sometimes that she's old enough to even drive, much less to be getting married. I've been humming "Sunrise, Sunset" all morning- I'm pretty ver klempt!

Honestly, though, where do the years ago? I wonder how my parents are holding up- my sister still lives at home, but she'll be moving out soon with Mark. They started looking at houses even before the trip to Mexico. So now my parents are sending off yet another daughter, and they'll have a new son-in-law in the not too distant future.

I told Chris he was going to have a new brother-in-law. To which he replied, "That's not how in-laws work. Marcia's not my sister, so Mark won't be my brother-in-law." He's such a jackass sometimes. Just the other day, he denied his uncle's "We're related!" request on Facebook because they're not related by blood, only marriage. Always with the semantics.

So, Marcia's getting married, my cousin Lisa's about ready to pop out her baby, and, AS I TYPE THIS, four men are out back laying down the bricks for our new patio. See, folks? Marcia and Lisa aren't the only ones with big impending life events.

Now I get to be a maid of honor. I've never been a maid of honor. Actually, I think the technical title is "matron of honor" since I'm married. (Semantics). Matron of honor sounds awful. It sounds fat. I think I will still demand to be a "maid" of honor. This may be the first of many demands I make for the wedding. Now excuse me while I write my toast. It's going to be hilarious.

Had the day off today, accomplished nothing. I took the day off because my new windows were being installed, finally, after cracking almost in half during that awful cold snap back in January. The window guys seemed hilariously incompetent, though, which was mildly entertaining. The one guy came running in the house yelling to the other guy, "The garbage men just took my stool! That was my favorite stool!" This after the window guy obviously set the stool right next to my can of garbage.

And that's been the highlight of my day so far. I'm leaving soon to go play bunco, which I am wildly embarrassed about. My neighbor got me in this "league," and if it wasn't for her, I'd have politely resigned after the first game. Bunco has got to be the most asinine game I've ever played. It's completely random, it's boring, and it's not even fun. On the upside, bunco seems to be the lady's version of fishing, by which I mean there's copious amounts of beer involved. So, heck, I guess it's not all that bad.

Hmm. I've sat here now for ten minutes not typing, just staring at the screen. Listening to Travis' "Re-Offender" on repeat. I'm pretty sure I owned this CD at one point, but the song still somehow seems new to me. I am losing brain matter by the second.

I am turning into a creepy old lady. I knew it would happen, I just didn't know it would begin before I was even thirty. I should probably specify that the creepiness only relates to little kids. I'm talking to strange little kids all the time- in the bank, at the grocery store, while I pump my gas, etc. And each time I get the same reaction- they hide from me. And I can't blame them. Why am I talking to them? What do I want? On some level, am I actually considering kidnapping one of these cute little kids? I think I might be. Somebody put a baby in me already!

Yesterday was Bring Your Daughter To Work Day, and one of my bosses brought his two little girls with him. And I let the girls sit with their daddy for all of ten minutes before I finally gave into my urges and approached them. "Who wants to see where we keep the money?" I cried out to the little girls. "Who wants to see the vault??" And they shyly exchanged glances with each other, and daddy, then clasped hands with each other as to create a metaphorical alliance, and proceeded to follow me back to the vault. Then I showed them how to make copies, and it was all over- the kids were mine for the rest of the morning. We mailed out some letters together, and I want to pre-emptively apologize to the recipients of these letters. These letters were not folded, they were simply crammed into the envelopes by adorable little girls who have never had to stuff envelopes before. "Why don't you tape the envelopes shut?" I said to them, sliding over my tape dispenser and then turning to do something else. A second later, I look back and notice that they've used my whole roll of tape, each envelope circumferenced several times with yard-long strips of unevenly applied tape. "That's okay, good job," I said, and then I asked them to put stamps on the envelopes. Which they did, upside down. But who am I to correct somone else's children? We walked over to where the outgoing mail went and I just prayed that my client wouldn't think that their banker was too retarded to properly mail a letter. Whatever, man! I kind of am.

And so the fun continued.

Seriously, though, I need to tone it down a bit.

I have been busy pretty much nonstop, which is so unlike me. I've had something going on every weekend since we got back from Austin, and this weekend is no different. Tonight, drinks with Gail and Rob and this guy Tim and tomorrow night more drinks with Jess and Tara. Next week, Lisa's baby shower, which for sure should be an interesting time, all things- and I do mean, all things- considered. Last weekend was Marcia and Mark coming up for a trip to the comedy club and a sleepover party, and the weekend before that was two days of binge drinking in Lake Geneva with Dan, Mike, and two girls named Meg. And Chris- Chris was there, but I never mention that he's there because I simply, mentally, include him when I say "I." We've morphed into one. That's what happens after three years of marriage. Which, by the way, we celebrated this past Tuesday. Craziness. How it's lasted this long, I can't explain. I'm not easy to live with. In fact, if I could break up with me, I would. But here I am, living the dream. Living the dream.

I'm worried about the economy. And I'm pissed off that I bought a house right before the start of the recession. Here are three things I got fucked on:

1. No $8,000 tax credit for me!
2. My house is now worth about 15% less than what we paid for it.
3. Mortgage rates are at an all time low, and it's next to impossible to refinance due to #2.

Obama has his "Make Housing Affordable" plan which should, in theory, help a person like me refinance, but I've called my mortgage servicer- Countrywide, which is being absorbed by Bank of America, which will in turn negatively affect me somehow, I'm sure- and they keep telling me that their call volume is too high, they have way too many requests, and they'll most likely call me back. I don't trust them to call me back, and that's why I keep calling them. Conversations go like this:

Me: Hi, it's Jackie again, and I was wondering if I should still be considering my current mortgage situation as "fucked."

Rep: Let me take a look at your statement... Seems you're paying on time each month, therefore you are not a priority. We'll call you in six weeks.

Me: Fine, I'll call back tomorrow.

I really hate the fact that paying my mortgage on time each month means that Countrywide doesn't care to help me. If I weren't such a financially responsible individual, I would cease all payments immediately until I qualified for one of those programs that meant I got to keep my home and also have a portion of my current mortgage balance forgiven. Once again, the solidly middle class gets screwed. Once again, doing things the right way gets you nothing but a swift kick in the teeth.

It's not just my current mortgage problem, though- it's the fact that stores and restaurants are going out of business left and right, that I know a whole bunch of people who have lost their jobs, and that the field of my choice- banking- is suddenly a heck of a lot less stable than it used to be. And our list of past due and delinquent loans has doubled, tripled.

Of course, I'm lucky to currently have a job at all. The nice thing is that my husband works for a prominent, upscale chain of liquor stores, and they're doing phenomenal. Sales are through the roof! They're opening new locations and growing like wildflowers, drunken, wine soaked wineflowers. So, as long as he keeps doing his job well, it's safe to say that he'll be just fine, employment wise.

Because people drink when the economy's in the tank. Also, according to one of my customers who makes engraved dies for the cookie and cracker industry, cookie consumption always goes up when times are tough. I know those two things are holding true for me. Wine, cookies, and for some reason I've been on a big fruit-and-nut granola bar kick. I've been eating, like, two a day. But that has nothing to do with the recession, I'm just trying to get more fiber in my diet.

I draw in my eyebrows. It's not that I don't have eyebrows, it's just that they're faint and sparse and almost completely blend in with my skin. Every morning, I take an eyebrow pencil and outline the shape and color them in with gentle, even little strokes. I've been doing this for ten years, ever since I had my eyebrows waxed when a co-worker of mine- who happened to be a part-time beauty school student- decided to play make-up doll with me. The waxing, that was okay. Painful in a a way that only progress can be, and I've been tweezing ever since in the same general arc. She also taught me how to use concealor, which I had never used before, and to use three different colors of eye shadow for contouring and shading. She picked out blush for my cheeks and instructed me on the art of applying it with a huge brush she'd purchased at the hardware store. She curled my eye lashes and lined my eyes in black. She confided in me that real women don't just use lipstick on their lips- they use a shiny gloss and a matte color and liner for good measure.

I followed through with her complex make-up regiment for a few months after her lessons, and then, bit by bit, the whorish, clownish, acne-inducing layers started falling by the wayside. It was more of a time management thing. It was more because I was lazy. And then, after a while, it was because I simply didn't care. However, the one thing that I am diligent about is the eyebrow coloring. If somebody knocks on my door in the morning, the first thing I think is, "Are my eyebrows on?" I don't look like ME without them properly shaped and colored. I look like a space alien. I look like I've gone back in time and almost prevented my parents from getting married, and instead of my hand disappearing while I play the guitar at their prom, it's my eyebrows that are fading out first. And I'm scared.

Anyway, everything's been fine with my eyebrows for the past decade, but recently something happened. The company that carried the eyebrow pencil in my specific, particular shade of brown simply stopped creating that color. I searched several stores while my panic built up to a crescendo. Then I did what I had to do and bought another shade of brown. I forgot about the dire situation until I used my last shade of Perfect Jackie Brown pencil down to its nub and opened my new pencil and began to apply. Oh... fuck. Oh...no. The new pencil was more green than brown, somehow, and my newly painted eyebrows were like two olive caterpillars slapped carelessly over my eyes. This would simply not do, I told myself as I drove to work with my green eyebrows- as green eyebrows are better than no eyebrows.

And so the search for the right color began. In the past few months, I've used every shade of brown I could find. The results have been as follows:

Too green, like caterpillars.

Too red, like my eyebrows bled for a few days and then just scabbed up.

Too yellow, like my face was oozing two strategically symmetric curves of puss.

Too tan, blends right in with the whole Mediterranean glow I've got going on.

Too dark, makes my eyebrows POP like that baby on The Simpsons with the one black eyebrow.

I'm at the point where I don't know what to do. I'm wondering what the people who see me everyday must be thinking. Do they wonder why my eyebrows change every day? Why they always look different and never look right? Do they think I've got severe emotional issues and I'm choosing to express my angst and depression through the colors etched above my eyes? Do they think that I must be BLIND to leave the house with those twin disasters beneath my forehead? Sometimes I want to simply interrupt people when I see their eyes wandering to the brows. Listen, I want to say. I know. It's a disaster. But until I can find the right shade of brown, I'm going to be looking a little wierd, so get used to it.

Instead, I say nothing, and then escape into the bathroom where I can closely examine my face and wonder where it all went wrong. Was it really just recently when my personal color got somehow discontinued? Or was it ten years ago, when the part-time beauty school student made me aware of the many, many issues surrounding this face of mine? Ignorance, they say, is bliss. Not knowing that your eyebrows can look any different? Ecstasy.