Wednesday, October 29, 2008

random snark redux

Sid is so impatient to get his new television. Why isn't it here yet? It should have been here by now! for the past two days, and I'm fairly sure he'll get it sometime this week, but STILL. Why is it okay for him to draw up a fucking diagram on how he wants to place the tv he hasn't received yet, but if I, or any woman, really, wants to look at clothes and toys for a baby they haven't conceived yet, we're fucking loons? We're impatient and crazy and why are you so impatient? Why is that? I seriously want to know. The double standard makes me crazy. I can't wrap my mind around it. I'm crazy for coming undone over some shit that I can have sometime in the future, and I'm crazy for wanting to talk about it, ever. And yet he's not crazy for feeling unadulterated technophilic lust over some shit that he can have when his old tv breaks, and he's not crazy for bringing it up every damned day?

Well fuck me blind. Isn't that just the damnedest thing? Does some magical element of the penis - or is it the scrotum - grant one the Right To Be Impatient? Is it just not ladylike to deport one's womanself in such manner? I'd very much like to know.

I feel like shit because Miss P is coming, and besides the normal hormonal batshit crazy that comes with it, I am unable to talk to Sid, or anyone, about how disappointed and sad I am. And that makes it worse. What really drives the salt into that huge open wound is the woman who got pregnant at the same time I did: it's all she talks about. "Oh, thank god for this, thank god it's a healthy pregnancy." Well god can go fuck himself. Bitch, you just.got.lucky. There's another woman who tested 10 dpo just like I did, and she got a positive just like I did, and she was so over the moon about it (just like I was, even though I didn't tell every-fucking-body). Bitch that I am, a very small part of me wanted to see how she would handle the disappointment if she ended up with a toilet full of blood. Of course, she didn't. She.got.lucky. And she has no idea. No idea at all. And it's okay for them to come and piss in my cornflakes, but if I bring up the fact that you know what, I really do feel like shit and I wish you'd shut up I'M Debbie Downer.

Well fuck me blind again. Isn't it just the damndest thing?

Monday, October 27, 2008

denial

One way I'm just like my mother is that I have a tendency to ignore a problem, outright deny that there is even a problem at all, until it is so bad it can no longer be ignored or denied. It evolves into something that becomes so massive that one can no longer look away. The problem must be confronted, after being allowed to grow into something huge and terrifying.

My sister, her fiance, Sid... even I have been wondering for a very long time if my youngest sister has an eating disorder. She used to be such a little meatball, and all of a sudden she lost all the weight and started looking...well, for lack of a better word...scarily tiny. Yesterday, my mother admitted that she thinks Abbie has bulimia.

When Abbie came to visit over the summer, I watched her like a hawk. I had my suspicions. But she didn't go to the bathroom after meals, she ate her food just like everyone else, so I figured I was being paranoid. Jessica tells me now that yes, Abbie came back from summer vacation having gained weight. But she lost it all immediately. And now Mom says that yes, there might be a problem.

If my mother is admitting that there is even the possibility that something is wrong, it is bad. This is the woman who denied having an ear infection up until her eardrum almost ruptured. If she says she thinks there is a problem, well then, there damn well is a problem.

Jessica asked me, "what do I do?" and I said I didn't know. She said, "how can we make this better?" and I said I didn't think we could, on our own. She asked, "where do I turn to get help for her?" and all I could think to suggest was to call the local hospitals and start asking about ED counseling. I feel helpless. My baby sister is sick, and I can't help her. All I can do is sit on the sidelines and hope that for once, for-fucking-once my mother will be able to get her shit together and do something for her youngest daughter before it's too late.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

wanting

The difference between Sid and I, the one huge difference that I am constantly aware of, is how we handle wanting. You know, how we deal with wishing we had x, y, or z and knowing we have to wait to obtain it. I bide my time quietly until the rage at having to wait boils over, and then I get angry and want to air my grievance. Then I go back to waiting patiently again. Sid, on the other hand, lets everyone know just how much he wants that thing, and how it would be great to have that thing, and man, doesn't that thing look spiffy? It is never far from his mind.

For the past two years, he's been wanting a new television. When we first moved into this house, we bought a 52" rear-projector (at Sid's insistence), and he was happy for about 0.5 seconds, before he started finding all these things about it that he didn't really think were so great. He wanted another tv. And I said no, we would not be buying a new one, as this one was functional.

Since then, every time we go to an electronics store, Sid goes to drool over the televisions. He scours all the electronics websites for good deals. He mentions at least once a week how he'd like a new tv.

Two days ago, I finally caved and told him that if he could find a new tv for a decent price, he could get it. I'm sick of being the Grinch. But goddamn, he was the one who told me that we should be putting money back for when he gets out of the Navy in August. The only thing I've purchased recently was a 5-pack of undies, on sale, because my old ones were full of holes and falling apart. I've done my part: I wore my raggedy underwear until there was nothing left of them rather than buy new ones. What has he done? Bought a $1,400 television.

And I'm the bad guy, here.

He didn't understand my frustration when I remarked that I wished the things I wanted were so easy to get. He offered me the same prosaic bullshit as Riot: "You have YEARS yet!" Knowing you have 10 or 15 years in which to obtain something that you want now doesn't make the waiting any easier.

And that's what Sid doesn't grok. The two years I made him wait to buy a new television didn't stop him from wanting it: he wasn't content to sit back and say "Fuck it, I've got years to buy a new tv!" I didn't tell him, "Let's go buy a tv," and wait until we got to the store and he'd picked out one he liked, and then say, "Ooh, you know what, we can't afford it, and you'll just have to wait. But hey, you have like 10 or 15 years yet to buy a new one!"

It is the closest comparison I can think of. Anyone in that position would be justifiably angry at having to wait. So why do people assume that just because I have ten or fifteen years left to have a family, I should be happy to sit back and wait for it?

Monday, October 20, 2008

this is why I stop at one glass of wine

My mom is a raging alcoholic. She will get shitfaced and say and do things that no healthy, sane person does when sober. Recently, she propositioned my sister's fiance during one of her drunken episodes, and this has sparked much drama. She is a diabetic, she does not need to be drinking like this: no one should, first of all, but for someone who is supposed to be strictly monitoring their blood glucose, this is definitely not okay.

This, all of this, is the reason I do not ever get shitfaced. I will not be my mother all over again. I'm like her in a lot of ways, but in this? I refuse.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

two things

Thing the first: An asshole in an SUV tried to hit Sid up for some money today. Keep in mind, Sid was just coming back from some bullshit Fleet Week thing, so it was obvious he was military. This dude starts talking incoherently about how he needs gas money and something about "rich men". Sid handed him a five dollar bill, and the guy says "That's it?"

THAT'S IT? Motherfucker, are you for real? Hitting up a military guy for money, first of all, like he makes bookoo dough or something, and then having the gall to complain when he doesn't give you a blank fucking check? You're lucky it was Sid standing there, and not me, because I would have grabbed my money back and gone home.

Thing the second: a woman I know just found she's having a girl. And she's SAD, you see, because she wanted a boy. Right about now, woman, I am having a hard time managing any sympathy. You see, lady, you're lucky. You don't know it, but you're lucky: you have had nothing in your pregnancy or your time trying to conceive that would allow you any bitching. No disappearing babies, no health scares, nothing. You have been lucky. And now, oh noez, you're having a girl? BUT YOU WANTED A BOY! Boo-fuckity-hoo. Cry me a river, why don't you?

Friday, October 10, 2008

left out

Two more of my friends are pregnant. This makes - what - five? Six? I saw one of them typed an announcement on one of the message boards and it was like a punch to the gut. It hurt, and a tiny little strangled noise came out of my throat when I exhaled, and then suddenly, I couldn't draw another breath without sobbing.

I have two tries left; next week, and next month, and then that's it. If it doesn't happen then, it just isn't going to happen at all. I don't even want to try, because I feel like if I have to go through the disappointment one more time, I will break. Once when I was little, very little, I wrote a story about someone who cried until they until they died. I didn't know I was writing about myself.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

a post about starky's epic fail nothing

This will be the fourth or fifth post that I have started and then deleted. What the fuck? I want to make a post that isn't about STARKY'S EPIC FAIL, or any of that attendant mess. And yet... it's the biggest, most personal, most taboo thing in my life right now, and while it doesn't occupy my every cognizant moment, neither is it ever entirely forgotten. It isn't something that I feel I can or even should talk about, because to an outsider, it will seem kind of silly. To someone who knows me, it will just be excruciatingly awkward. And besides, I asked Sid not to mention it. Ever again. He must have seen death in my eyes when I basically demanded he keep his mouth shut on this particular subject, because he has not once brought it up since his first night back from the boat.

But more than that, it's just pointless. What is there to say about this whole clusterfuck? Seriously, what is there to say?

"Sid, (or Riot, or Spartan, or Floyd...)I'm actually pretty pissed at myself about this whole mess, and I feel sick when I think that I could have finally had our own (my own) family, but instead, it literally and figuratively got flushed down the toilet. Every time I see a pregnant woman, or a baby, it's all I can think about. I look at babies, and all I can think is that I could have had that, but IT GOT FLUSHED DOWN THE MOTHERFUCKING TOILET."

"How depressingly morbid, starky! Do go on!"


Yeah...no. My social skills are a bit rusty, but even I suspect that that's just not acceptable conversation, right there. Who seriously says shit like that out loud? Seriously. Because even typing it seems like too much.

I am not one of those people who think that life starts at conception, and I will be the first to admit that I am only mourning what could have been, because I never actually had anything. I never had anything beyond that positive test. And to be honest, I think that is the worst kind of loss. I started with nothing, and I ended up with nothing. I have no proof that any of it was real, that I ever had anything to lose in the first place: I have nothing tangible that I can present to say "this is what I lost". I have nothing.

And it feels stupid to be dwelling on nothing.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

I can't get away from it

The universe, god, or fate, whatever you call it, has one fucked up sense of humor. How do I know? Oh, it's easy. You see, right now, I am feeling a just a wee bit fragile: the sight of pregnant women or babies just breaks my heart. I can't bear to be around either right now, and so what happens? Every woman in the tri-county area is dragging around eleventy-three crotch droplets, or is expecting a few. Either way, fun times!

Sid took me out to eat on Monday, and our waitress? Was hugely pregnant. I almost cried. I kept my eyes to the table, or stared out the window, rather than look at her. I just couldn't take it. Petty? Sure. Painful? Hell yes.

Afterward, we did some game shopping, and again, with the pregnant women stalking me. I could have screamed. Did I just not notice this before? Is it just now, because I'm so sensitive to it, that I notice? Or am I being kicked while I'm down? Because that's what the fuck it feels like.

Anyway, the very next day we were expecting to have a quiet day at home. Sid didn't have work, and we were just going to sit around the house and have fun. But his temporary cap shattered, and we had to make an emergency trip to the dentist. While he's in the back getting his gold toof, in walks a couple with a baby. Couldn't have been more than three months old, this little girl, and she was the most beautiful little thing. I couldn't stop staring. And I didn't know that anything could be so hard as sitting in that waiting room and trying to pretend that I was not absolutely shattered.

Every little noise that baby made, my heart would start pounding and I'd feel that weird sense of needing to do something, but not knowing what. The only thing I can compare it to is when you're young, and you start having sex dreams: you wake up all in a sweat, with your heart pounding, and there is such a sense of excited, sad yearning. You wake up feeling as though you have missed something terribly important, something that would have absolutely changed you. You know that you are missing something, but you don't know what it is.

Oh, it doesn't make any sense. I'm not sure that even Sid would understand. He seemed to think it was kind of amusing, when on the way home, I offhandedly mentioned the cute little baby in the waiting room. He asked me "You really want a baby, don't you?" And of course, instead of opening that can of worms, I brushed it off: "No, I just thought she was really cute. I wanted to pinch her fat little arms." I think if he knew the truth, it would wound him terribly, and I don't want that. He always says he wants to make me happy, and in this, he can't just go out and buy something, or take me away for a weekend, or do whatever it is that he thinks I want, because I never ever ask for anything.

But what would be the harm in just once acknowledging it? Just once? I came close at the restaurant. I told him pretty much the same thing that I said in the opening paragraph: "The universe has a sick sense of humor, Sid, because right now, I can't stand the sight of pregnant women, and remember the day my 'period' started? The pregnant woman at the mexican restaurant? And now this server, here? It's fucked up." And he agreed that yes, it was fucked up, and that was as far as the conversation went. What would be the harm in just one time telling him, "Yes, I want a child. I want to make a better family than the ones we came from"? If he's read this blog, then he already knows. And in that case, we're both passive-aggressive shits, because I haven't brought it up, and neither has he.