Schadenfreudette

The sarcasm.  It likes me and I like it back.  Normally, I can get a good feel for people and whether they can appreciate my sense of humor.  Very few people can handle the blackest of my humor, so jokes about my dead father I can pretty much only tell to my little sister.  But most people are sufficiently equipped for a basic level of sarcasm.  Right?  Um, maybe not....

 

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Situation 1
Location: Office IM conversation
Participant: Co-worker/friend
Conversation topic: Volleyball. (He played in college and offers tips for Allie.)

Co-worker/friend:  You really need accurate setters or no one will ever get to hit the ball.

Me:  They haven't really mastered hitting yet. Half the time they swing and miss, but Allie's getting much better.

Co-worker/friend:  Well, as long as they're having fun and learning to not be afraid of the ball.

Me:  Yeah, I thrown the ball at Allie's face for 15 minutes every night to make sure she's not scared.  If she flinches or cries, then I make her do 50 push ups.

Co-worker/friend:  Well, I guess that's one way of doing it...

Me:  That's what her therapist said.

 

 

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Situation 2
Location: Conference Room at BP
Participants: Two new hires in our department
Conversation topic: Office procedures

Co-worker 1:  So on Fridays we only work 8 hours instead of 9?

Me:  Yep. So you can either shorten your typical schedule by one hour, or actually take a lunch.  Oh, and dress code on Fridays...

Co-worker 2:  Casual Fridays?

Me:  No, we actually have Formal Fridays.

Co-worker 2:  Wait, what?

Me:  Yeah, we tried casual Fridays for awhile, but people started taking it too far, with cutoffs and flip flops and such.  So now we do formal Fridays.  

Co-worker 2:  Ummmm...

Co-worker 1:  Are you by any chance messing with us? 

Me:  No, seriously.  Sequins or cocktail attire for the ladies.  Black tie for the gentlemen.  If you don't own a tux, talk to the office assistant.  She'll let you know which shops offer BP discount and then you can expense it.

Co-worker 2:  *blank stare*

Me:  It's actually quite fun!  And since we only work every other Friday, it brings a sense of occasion to the proceedings.

Co-worker 1:  I'm pretty sure she's messing with us.

 

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Situation 3
Location: BP Cafeteria
Participant: Former co-worker who had come back for a visit
Conversation topic: My weight loss

Former co-worker:  Hey!  How's it going?  Have you lost weight?

Me:  I have actually!

Former co-worker:  Like, a lot of weight?

Me:  I'm not sure.  Maybe 20ish pounds?

Former co-worker:  You look great.  How did you do it?

Me:  Eh, mostly amphetamines and nicotine.  

Former co-worker:  Um, well... okay.

 

 

 

You know those times when you have so much to do at work and at home and you need to spend every waking moment devoted to crossing things off of your "To Do" list, but instead you get overwhelmed and decide to spend those valuable minutes surfing Pinterest, reading Vampire Diaries recaps, and searching for Downton Abbey fanfiction?  Me neither.  Because sometimes, I partake in "Guilt Free Procrastinating" in which I make invitations for parties which do not exist.  

True, nothing is crossed off of my "To Do" list, but dammit, it was fun.  Next in the series "Passive Aggressive Birthday Party Invitation"

 

"I want to be a whore for Halloween!" Allie gushed at the dinner table last week.  As I tried not to choke on my dinner, she continued to elaborate. "I want to have gross skin, and yellow eyes and a shirt that shows my belly button."

"Me too!" said Avery, sounding like every little sister EVER. 

"Um," I stammered. "What? Why? Where did this come from?" I anticipated that as the girls got older, they would no longer want to be ladybugs and fairies, but this was a bit much. I thought we'd at least have baby steps. There should be a gradual progression from 1st Halloween (baby pumpkin!) to 21st Halloween (sexy nurse!) and that progression does not include hepatitis-infected crack addicts. I was on the verge of suggesting she dress up like Ke$ha or Britney Spears, which shows the level of my desperation.  "Please explain. I beg of you."

"We saw the whores in our video game and they're so cool and freaky looking," said Avery.

Now, I know for certain that the raciest video game I play on the Wii is Super Mario Brothers. And the only time is is inappropriate for the kids is when I'm playing it and cussing at the screen in frustration. Ron swears I could make sailors blush with the invective I spew towards those damn flying Koopas. But I don't call them whores. Sons of whores, maybe. And worse, probably. Then it dawned on me. In the playroom upstairs, we have an old Playstation 2 that we inherited from my sister. Could her ex-husband have left a copy of Grand Theft Auto behind?

"Yeah, Mom," Allie continued. "Each village has a different whore. There is one that wears a red miniskirt and looks really evil. Then another one is fat and gross and kind of oozing from everywhere. It's totally gross."

"Totally," I agreed. "Which game is this again?"

"Ron got it for us!" they said, and then Ron almost died from how hard I swiveled around and glared at him.

"But... I... not... I... but... " Ron said. 

"Yeah! It's called 'Whoreland' and it's totally spooky and awesome!"

Ahhhh.  HORROR.  Not WHORE.  BIG DIFFERENCE.

The girls puzzled as to why Ron and I were nearly peeing on ourselves with laughter, but we just encouraged them to tell us more. Some of the horrors have special talents! Some of them steal your money! Some of them are really nice to you!  They still haven't figured out why their mispronunciation is so funny. But we can't tell them yet because it will ruin our fun.

And no.  They're not going to be whores OR horrors for Halloween. Let's just all be thankful I narrowly avoided suggesting Ke$ha.

I have a compulsion to know everything. My mother always cast it in a favorable light, calling it a "voracious love of knowledge," but it can (and often does) veer into unhealthy compulsion territory at times.  Reading encyclopedias for fun is useful.  Memorizing people's middle names and social security numbers for fun, somewhat less so.  Meanwhile, I have glaring blind spots of willful ignorance on certain issues - my epilepsy, the grocery budget, the circumstances surrounding my father's death.  

At the request of my mother, Chastity (my oldest sister) told me the details once of what he was doing the night before, who found him and when and how, and all of the players involved.  I don't remember a shred of it. There is so much I don't know about him. Which is why, on a whim, I got a copy of his autopsy report.

I still don't know what he was doing that night, if he thought about me - if he thought about any of us - but I know his brain was normally configured and symmetric.  I don't know if he every really loved me, but I know his heart weighed 340 grams. I don't know his favorite food, but I know he died with 125 ml of bloody-appearing fluid in his stomach.  His left lung weighed more than his right.  His thyroid gland was maroonish. He still had his appendix. His liver was well on its way to being trashed. Although toxicology was clean for a laundry list of drugs, I know that "punctate area of discoloration in right antecubital fossa" is fancy talk for track marks.   I can appreciate the poetry of his blood alcohol level being the same as his age.  He always said he'd never make it to 40.  0.39 appeared to be his limit in other ways as well.

I had hoped the report would detail his hands. I wanted to know how long his nails were. I can't remember. Did he have callouses on his fingers from playing guitar? Did the medical examiner know he was an exceptionally gifted musician? That the "body clothed in sneakers, grey pants, and a yellow tee shirt" could almost heal those he hurt, with just a few well-progressed chords on his Fender? 

For some reason, my brain equates extensive knowledge with love. This is the most I will ever directly know about him. And even though I worried this endeavor was a bit morbid on my part, I don't regret learning all that I now know.  Because on the inside, what he really was made of was music.

Happy birthday, Sparky.  I decoupaged a wine bottle with your autopsy report and filled it with Fender guitar strings. I'm one of your weirder daughters, but I think you'd be proud of me anyway.

Most of my favorite childhood memories involve my Grampsy. He was my mom's father and the complete polar opposite of my dad. Kind, gentle, devout, intelligent, and 1,000% absolutely wrapped around my little finger. He was my father figure growing up and I owe a lot of my stability to his guiding influence. He taught me how to throw a baseball. He gave me viola lessons. He made up elaborte bedtime stories on command. He built me a sandbox, a swingset, a kite. There are so many Grampsy stories in our family; he was devoted to all of his kids and grandkids. Some are personal and private and others pass into the always evolving oral history of family legend.

One of my favorites was from when I was probably 4 years old. My mom was finishing her degree and my grandparents normally watched me while she was at school. One morning, Grampsy and I found ourselves in the kitchen, hungry for breakfast and with no one to cook for us as Grandma was out of the state visiting her oldest daughter. Most adults would have just made toast or a bowl of cereal, but I really really REALLY wanted oatmeal. And if I really really REALLY wanted something, Grampsy was going to find a way to help me get it. He opened the tube of Quaker Oats, set a pan on the stove, and then looked at me with a bewildered grin.

"Ashley. I have no idea how to make oatmeal," he said.

Sitting on the counter in my yellow flannel PJs, swinging my little legs I gave him a wide-eyed look of exasperation and advised "Well, silly. Read the back of the box. That's where the instructions are."

And this is the family legend of how I taught my Grampsy to cook. 

This is also probably the last time I ever taught a man to cook. Not because they can't cook, but because I can't teach much beyond "Look at the directions, you big dummy."  Luckily for you guys, the inimitable Mr Lady (AKA Shannon) and the accomplished Busy Dad (AKA Jim) are better than me at both cooking and teaching and you can benefit from them yourself when I co-host an upcoming class in the web’s first-ever virtual cooking school, Cooking Connections.  

The deets are as follows:

When: Wednesday, March 16, at 8 p.m. ET

Where: TheMotherhood – here’s the link to the page where the class will be held: http://www.themotherhood.com/talk/show/id/62137

What:  Jim and Shannon will be chatting via live video feed, and the my co-hosts and I will be circling the room with trays of champagne and canapes.  Virtual champage and canapes, of course.  Which means we'll be sharing anecdotes and tips for having fun in the kitchen in the text-based comments below the video. (The class is sponsored by ConAgra and hosted by TheMotherhood.)

There will also be other fabulous co-hosts, so you won't be stuck in the corner while I awkwardly try to make conversation. (Though if you feel awkward, I'm the girl to hang with.)

Julie, Angry Julie Monday, http://www.angryjuliemonday.com
Mishelle Lane, Secret Agent Mama, http://secretagentmama.com/blog
Ashley Evans, Schadenfreudette, http://www.schadenfreudette.com 
Tanis Miller, Attack of the Redneck Mommy, http://www.theredneckmommy.com
Dan Deguia, Deguia.net, http://www.deguia.net
Lotus Carroll, Sarcastic Mom, http://www.sarcasticmom.com
Melanie Sheridan; Mel, a Dramatic Mommy, http://www.meladramaticmommy.com
PJ Mullen, Real Men Drive Minivans, http://www.realmendriveminivans.com
Diane, Momo Fali, http://www.momofali.com
Robin Sue Joss, Big Red Kitchen, http://www.bigredkitchen.com
Eddie Carroll; Life, One Pixel at a Time, http://onepixelatatime.posterous.com/

Hope to see you guys there. As you can see, Jim and Shannon are likely to deliver not only an awesome recipe, but a generous side dish of hilarious awesomeness.

Trust me.  You don't want to miss it.

I'm big on anniversaries. I have (over)thought about why I remember so many anniversaries and I've decided that they are a sort of home for me. Each one represents not just what happened on that day, but where I was in my life, who I was with, what was important at that time. They're my own little time capsules and I take them very personally. This is probably why I nearly bit Ron's head off when he tried to argue about what year it snowed on Christmas Eve here in Houston. "It was 2006!" he protested. "I know because I was at my parents' house!"

"Oh really? That one year when you were at the house your parents have lived in your entire life? It wasn't 2006, it was 2004. I know because I was still married to my first husband, was in fact dreading going home that night, and Mom hadn't had her brain aneurysm yet and was there to photograph it." So there.

My first kiss was July 29, 1990. I was at WaterWorld in Denver with my youth group, but flying back home to Texas the next day. I'd had a crush on Matt all summer and we said our goodbyes in the wave pool. I went to the zoo with my aunt afterwards and spent the rest of the afternoon wondering if I was going to hell and if it had been worth it. I found out I was pregnant with Allie on September 10, 2001 which put a serious cramp in my exciting life of going out clubbing with my sister while looking ridiculously fabulous. I spent the afternoon wondering if I had truly appreciated my last vodka tonic and whether I would look as ridiculously fabulous as a mom. I touched my first Jimmy Choo shoe on October 22, 2004 and I cried at its beauty. Some of my friends had flown in for my birthday and we were at the Galleria doing the tourist thing. I probably wasn't crying about the shoe, I was probably crying because I was turning 27 and knew my marriage was pretty much over with. But then again, Jimmy Choos are pretty fucking beautiful.  I met my BFF on February 27, 2010 when we were invited to her house for the best fish tacos ever. Ron had met this cool blogger chick and thought she and I might hit it off. (He said that on February 22, 2010 and though I was doubtful at the time, this date is now the anniversary of the biggest understatement EVER). 

March 4 marks the 17th anniversary of my father's death. I was 16 and a junior in high school. My favorite classes were AP Anatomy and Yearbook. I didn't have too many friends because most kids my age were into drinking and partying and I was very against any of that. Boys liked me, but I didn't have a boyfriend because I figured out pretty quickly that all they wanted was to sleep with me, and I was completely not interested. I was a good student, a good daughter, a good sister.  That weekend, Mom had dropped Lindsay and me off in Lousiana at the home of my dad's first wife, so we could visit our half-sisters, Chastity and Deedee. We hadn't seen them in awhile and it was a great visit until we got that phone call.  It wasn't a car crash or a mugging or anything dramatic. He just died of an alcohol and drug overdose. Just like we always knew he would. Just like he always knew he would - bragging that "I'll never make it to 40! I'm rock and roll!" Great job, dad. You died 6 months shy of 40. It wasn't a surprise, but it still stung a little. The thing that hurt most, was knowing how hurt my little sisters would be. I was old enough to be jaded at that point. They were not.

The week after that was strange. I had to call and tell a couple of my friends. It was awkward. They didn't know what to say to comfort me, and I didn't know what to say to comfort about not knowing how to comfort me. On Monday, the counselor's office sent a student aid to pull me out of class - which was a rare occurrence at our school. I knew why they waited until third period; the student aid at that time was Joe. He had lost his mother to cancer earlier in the year and I'm sure that the well-intentioned faculty thought we could buddy up and share talk of dead parents. Recognizing how out of the ordinary the class disruption was, a few students around me asked "Why are you going to the counselor's office?" I was at the center of the kind of attention I didn't want. I attempted a non-chalant "Oh, my dad died this weekend, so I'm sure they want to talk to me." It fell flat and most people stared like a second head had just sprouted from my shoulder and started rapping in French. I grabbed my backpack, headed toward Joe and he gave me that sad and cliched "sorry for your loss" smile. But at least his eyes said honestly "I know how much this sucks for you. All of it."

The next month was strange because every day turned into an anniversary. Every Friday was an anniversary of the last day he was alive. Saturdays were anniversaries of  the day I found out. Wednesdays commemorated the viewing. Thursdays marked the day of the funeral. I drank for the first time ever. Our small Texas town was on the Louisiana border and back then the drinking age was 18. So it was pretty easy to find a friend to get me a six-pack of Zima. My friend and her boyfriend drove me around while I drank in the backseat. I ended up puking in a Whataburger parking lot, crying and wondering what was so great about this that my dad had died for it. I began to really not like my anatomy class. Particularly difficult was our field trip to the Harris County Medical Examiner. Seeing an autopsy table and hearing all the details of the procedure, it was too easy to picture my dad there. When we walked by the cooler, someone had left the door open and even though they were covered by sheets, the sight of the dead was too much.

This year on the anniversary of his death, I freaked out a little bit. That date can sometimes magnify every little inconsequential thing that is going wrong and I will blow it out of proportion. My husband's headache becomes a leaking brain aneurysm and his unwillingness to go to the ER becomes a deliberate attempt to die and leave me all alone. My mom making irresponsible, but well-intentioned decisions becomes a pattern of destructive behavior and I lament that I am the only adult in my family and was in fact raised by children. My daughters' desire to play outside with their friends instead of running errands with me becomes I have alienated my children because I have to work so much and they feel abandoned and unloved. For that one day, I reverted to being that naive and sweet, but overly dramatic 16-year old who is old enough to be jaded, but still young enough to take it all very very personally. It was 1994 on Friday and it sucked.

It got better. Well, it got easier anyway. Talking with Chastity last week, she asked "Does it still bother you that he died?" I instantly and honestly answered no. It bothers our younger sisters still, but Chastity and I know that his death meant that there was an entire generation of kids that he didn't get to fuck up. He wasn't around to screw up grandkids' birthdays, or to be too drunk to show up to our weddings. Sure I loved him and I miss what he could have become. I respect his talent and am proud to carry on the best of his genetic material. But I am also old enough to know that though it sucked at the time, his passing was the cruelest of blessings.

I don't remember the house my parents lived in when I was born. It might have been one of the rental houses owned by my grandparents or it might have been the little stone house behind the Tasty Freeze. All I know for sure is that it wasn't my home for long. We moved. And still I'm not sure which house was next. Was it the duplex on Larry Street or the apartment near the junior high? It wasn't my home for long either. My mom was young with nomadic tendencies and my father was a musician.  The only constant when it came to homes, was the constant knowledge that we would be moving on before long.

It never really bothered me much growing up. My mom's parents were missionaries, so I always heard about their travels throughout Central America.  I thought moving around was just a normal thing that families did. We were always moving for a good reason; my mom was not frivolous about it. Sometimes we just moved to a new house in the same town, sometimes we moved in with my grandparents when times were tough, sometimes we moved to entirely different states in exotic new time zones. By the time I was in the fifth grade, I was so good at being the new kid, so settled in that role and all it entailed, that when another new girl came to the school, I had my very first identity crisis.  Who was I, if I wasn't the new girl? Valedictorian of angst, even at the tender age of 10, I was.

Some homes were better than others. I got to paint my room yellow in the house on Maple street. There was a beautiful Mimosa tree in the front yard of the house on Ash. In California, I could ride my bike through the hills in the nearby avocado and orange groves. I had 24/7 access to summer camp when we stayed with my grandparents who actually lived on the campgrounds. The neighborhood in Sleepy Hollow was filled with friends from school. The house in Houston had a gorgeous backyard. Then there were the homes that weren't so fun. The garage apartment filled with hand me down furniture. The townhouse with neighbors who blasted their music at all hours. The house on Terrell that was so old, our furniture literally wouldn't fit through the front door, so we had to sit on couch cushions in the living room.

People say kids are resilient. I say they just don't know any better. If they knew what they were actually going through, they'd rail and scream and flail against it. Instead, they just think it's business as usual.  Until they are older and someone generously offers them a clue. Then they can form opinion and plan how things will be different one day. Because although the constant moving never bothered me-- once I was old enough to know better, to make friends with people who had lived in the same house since they were born, to learn that our way of life wasn't "normal," I knew I wanted out. I don't know how many times I moved while growing up. Somewhere between 20 and 30.  I quit counting after I graduated high school. And I believe my grand total of schools attended was 12. I could probably count for you, but I'd rather not.

When I was pregnant with Allie, I promised that no matter what, I would give her a home. Singular. She could go to the same school and head off to college with kids who once ate paste alongside her. We could mark her growth on the pantry door and marvel at how little she used to be. We would redecorate and repaint her room as her tastes changed throughout the years. She could move away, but always have a familiar place to come back to. A place that stored her memories, a place that helped form her, a place that was safe and known and constant. A home.

I think she was about 3 when I realized I wasn't going to be able to give her that. Newly divorced, living in yet another house with my nomadic mother. Of course, when we moved into that house with my mom, it was Allie's fourth move. I always thought that eventually, life would turn out how I promised. There was a cul-de-sac and a tire swing just around the corner. I thought if I could just work hard enough, make the right deals, figure it out somehow, it would all be attainable. I could somehow do it on my own, couldn't I? Maybe? Probably not... At least she's not old enough to know any better, I thought. 

But now she is. Now she's almost 9. She's on her 9th home. She's resilient of course. There are some homes she likes better than others. We got to paint the room pink at the house on Spruce. The yellow apartments had an awesome pool. The house where we are now has fun neighborhood kids and a playroom and butterflies on her wall. But I know this one is temporary too. We won't be here this time next year. And she's learning, like I learned, that home sometimes isn't a place you can go back to. Sometimes you have to carry your home with you. For us, home will never be a concrete place with square footage and a ZIP code. Home will always be Allie's smile, Avery's laughter, Ron's sighs. Home will always be each other. 

I have gone back and forth for so long.  This first paragraph has been written and deleted and re-written and re-deleted no less than 10 times.  Even as I announced I was going to return, I told myself that I must get everything in proper order first. I couldn't just jump in and start again. I had to make everything perfect. The site had to be pretty, the coding had to be cleaned up, the drivel had to be edited out, the pictures had to be fixed. Sure, some of this was legit because importing everything from the old Vox platform to the new Posterous platform wasn't without it's bugs. But eventually I realized that I was stalling. I was becoming that person who won't commit until everything is exactly perfect and instead misses out on everything. I can't be that person. What's more, my husband won't let me stall anymore, which makes me love and loathe him in very unequal parts.

Ultimately, I need to write. I write in my head constantly. It is how I think and process and survive. It is how I look in the mirror at myself and take stock of what is there. It is my illness and my doctor and my medicine all in one. I've been avoiding that mirror because I don't want to see what I know is there. The depression and anxiety I once successfully managed, are now overwhelming me. I've gone from being slightly morose, but ultimately optimistic, to being that girl in the commercials who can't get out of her sweatpants and off of the couch. I used to fix my hair, put on make up, dress in cute outfits. Now I'm lucky if I wash my hair once a week. I used to be slightly intimidated by crowds and new situations. Now I have the wonderful new experience of teetering on the precipice of agoraphobia. All I want is a dark, small, quiet place with walls to protect me and to keep everything out. I think I might need a womb. Yes, a womb would be nice.

I know this is not the real me. Well, not all of me anyway. My children deserve better, my husband deserves better, my friends deserve better. And yeah, ok... I probably deserve better too. I need to make time to remember me and what makes me who I am. I need to speak, to scream, to dance, to write. I need to live and I know that this is the only way to wake myself out of this walking death. I promise I won't be all maudlin, all the time. That would defeat the purpose. But I do need to wallow in work through some things and you're more than welcome to cheer me on, share your own journey, or slap me and tell me to get over myself.  

Thanks for having me back, oh nebulous and nameless blogosphere. Let's get over ourselves together, shalle we?

Complete with sound effects. 

That would be very important princess.