A Wee Little Storm OR You're Welcome, World

I don't think there are any pictures of me from the age of Born to the age of Five where I am not trying to put things in my mouth. Seriously. My mom has a bunch of pictures of me where I'm either stuffing my face, about to stuff my face, hovering over my food like an animal, or trying to put toys in my mouth. In a very few, I appear to be offering food, but I know that can only be a cruel trick I'm about to play on someone because Storm does not offer her food to anyone.

Around the time mom was finding all these awesome pictures of me my parents remembered a fun game they used to love to play when they were drunk-slash-high-slash-both where they would put my pacifier in upside down and I would flip it right side up in my mouth without using my hands. Apparently they thought it was the neatest thing ever and they would entertain themselves and their friends for long periods of time. They would show me off like a dog who's just discovered a laser pointer and chases it relentlessly in circles. "No seriously, check this out. She does it every time!"


This is the environment I grew up in folks. Praise and attention for doing things with my mouth. It's lucky I turned out as awesome and psychologically stable as I did. (Side note: My parents are amazing, and this is me joking.)

So here's a little sampling of adorable tiny Storm, and her oral fixation (I so wish I had a copy of the one where I'm walking out of a public restroom in Alabama, toddling after mom, in my cut-off jean shorts and messy hair, a toy in each hand cause I fucking can, and no shoes. It's priceless.):

 This one is called "Linoleum and Bread Crumbs"

P.S. check that stance.

This is the trick I mentioned. Look how pleased my face is. Someone is clearly going to fall for this. 

The action figure Sleeping Storm now comes with pacifier accessory and safety harness. 

This is my very personal favorite. I call it: Sleepy Old Man Storm... with pacifier.

There's a picture of my mom's parents on their 25th wedding anniversary, where they both look like they're trying to reach California from Oklahoma (that's a Grapes of Wrath joke for you well-read types, and consequently a Depression Era/Dust Bowl joke). They look absolutely miserable, and nobody knows why. Anyway, I look exactly like my grandfather in the last picture here, except a little sleepy. And I have a pacifier. Not even kidding.

Written Word

I've recently been informed that I've offended/upset some people with a few of my posts. My intention of keeping this blog in particular was never to offend or insult anyone. It's basically a train of thought, or a few trains, whatever happens to be on my mind at the time, and I stop only to fix a punctuation or spelling error. Then I hit the Publish button. And I don't go back to it again.

I don't write drafts, or proof-read (aside from the punctuation or spelling, which are errors that I see as I go), or have someone else tell me if they think I should change anything here or there. I just write it.

So I absolutely guarantee that I've said some things that are rude, inconsiderate, impolite, crass, insulting, completely offensive, etc., etc., etc., about family, friends, people I don't know at all, family, people I do know but not that well, family, that asshole who passed me on my way home from work and laid on the horn because I guess the speed limit just isn't fucking good enough (I will cut his face if I ever see him again. Straight up. His face.), family.

There are many things I could say to excuse my behavior. I won't say those things. I could easily just start filtering what I say, and plan out my posts so as not to offend people. I won't start doing that. I could apologize for the things I've written, but to do that feels hollow to me. It feels insincere. These are my thoughts and opinions, and it's important to remember that they are constantly changing. My opinion of you as a person doesn't stay the same from one moment to the next. I never completely make up my mind about a person. (ED NOTE: I just went back to put in the word 'say' in the first sentence of this paragraph, and in the time it took me to do that, I got distracted by the TV for like, ever. (I just did it again.) )

I will say that, since I'm not apologizing for my thoughts or opinions, I would like to apologize for the way in which I expressed those thoughts or opinions. Maybe I could have been more direct, and discussed the issue personally, or maybe I could have been more polite, because I'm often quite bitchy. But I didn't. And unless the issue is something that is sincerely bothering me, I probably won't in the future.

The above paragraph also pertains to this post, and all future posts.

I Do Not Know What 'Auld Lang Syne' means.

Okay so I was going to post about the Vacation movies, and I even have a draft saved of that blog, but then I just got really lazy this past week. I was off from 5 am Wednesday morning until, well I'm still off actually, and I was online for a pretty good amount of that time, and I just did not do anything with the blog. And then Friday we went to down to Columbus to my brother's for New Years Eve. Naturally while there I also did not do any blogging, as evidenced by this being the most recent post since before Christmas. I was going to talk about other stuff, like how my job now completely blows it again, but apparently I have to talk about my holiday. Cause my brother's wife wants to read about my Christmas, even though she celebrated it with me. Maybe she got drunk and blacked out afterward and can't remember it. Anyway, here's a rundown:

• December 23rd: Jeremy and I open presents, I get super amazing gifts, he gets what I thought were super amazing gifts but evidently are just 'pretty cool' gifts. What a dick. Also, go to calling hours for a relative of a friend of the family.
• December 24th: Christmas with my side of the family, including my apparently super drunk sister-in-law. More awesome gifts exchanged, funny zingers tossed out ("Oh nice, actually"), brunch buffet with tiny pancakes enjoyed, and I make punch following a supposedly German recipe that has a lot of wine, a lot of rum, and very little actual flavor. Cody and dad drink almost literally all of it. Troopers.
• December 25th: Christmas with Jeremy's side of the family, we get a blender, a fire-safe, and I get a cake pop maker. Guess who's bringing dessert next year? This girl! Then we go to Christmas at other friends house who also lives in Salem (where we were for his side of the family). I get a transforming stuffed Perry the Platypus. Jeremy get s a Boba Fett helmet to go with the Boba Fett hoodie he received the day before. The helmet, built for a child, astonishingly fits Jeremy's obnoxiously large head.

To culminate the holiday season, as I mentioned earlier, we went to Columbus and got drunk with my brother and his wife. Mum came with us but she doesn't drink so she just nursed her O'Douls like a pro. I like to think she'll remember it, but likely I'll have to post something about that. So here:

• Saw the movie New Years Eve, on New Years Eve (naturally).
• Ate at Wholly Joe's
• Dressed up all pretty
• Played board games that resulted in hilarity
• Got increasingly more drunk as the night wore on
• At midnight, blasted a glass of champagne at my sisters urging even though she bailed like a pussy cause she underestimated the fizziness of it.
• Drove home the next day, today, with zero problems with the Jeep (unlike the last time when we literally broke down on the highway but managed to crawl to a gas station to get towed to a Good Year and had to spend the night again cause no place was open to fix the belt and water pump.)

So, there ya go. My holiday.

Odds and Ends

If you haven't seen it last weeks episode of American Horror Story was pretty fantastic, in my opinion. My favorite part was the ending, and not in my usual, sarcastic, 'thank god that's over' way. I was sincerely moved by the ending. You feel Violet's pain when she makes Tate go away and then she's crying and there's no music so it's all you hear and they do that slow-camera-spinny-thing and I was waiting for Vivien to show up and the way she did was terrific. Just her hand on Violet's shoulder while she's crying and then you see them and the look on her face speaks volumes. You see at once her love and pride for her daughter as well as her hatred and disgust at being trapped in the house forever.

I cried. Not gonna lie. Got all teared up and sniffly.

Waiting on a few packages to arrive to be all finished with presents. Everything is bought and wrapped but those few damn things the mail is taking forever to get to me. The one item for Jeremy I bought this past week, got order confirmation, received it Friday, and Saturday got the email that it had shipped. Which was a little backwards, but I got it a lot sooner than I expected to, so that was nice. It's going to be so awesome. I can't wait for him to open it. He's going to love it.

I believe I mentioned that we weren't putting up a tree this year. Instead, I put some ornaments on the wall and strung lights around them in what I had intended to be a star shape. It looks super demented though so I won't be taking pictures of that. It's festive, in what I imagine is the way Renfield would decorate after dining on splys (spider stuffed flys).

I can think of two people off the top of my head who will get that reference.

Unrelated, I'm scheduled overnight Friday till 3:45 am. Our family celebration is Saturday. This seems like an awesome effort on my manager's part to give me Christmas Eve off which I mentioned I would like, but as a retail employee am not allowed to request off, because it's the holidays. I appreciate her efforts. On the other hand, unlike my brother who works till 8-ish Saturday morning, I have time to go home and sleep before festivities begin. Which is almost worse than not being able to, because I can get like four hours before I have to get up and start getting ready. Four hours seems like a lot if you're an insomniac, but after an 8 hour shift during the time of night when you're used to sleeping, four hours actually just feels like a light nap. So I'll likely be pissy and bitchy Saturday. Merry Christmas family!

Honestly, I can find anything to complain about. I am just never satisfied.

I Couldn't Sleep

Early this morning while trying to sleep (I got home at 4, for a change.) I was thinking about my wedding dress and how I originally thought that because of how informal it was I would be able to wear it anywhere afterwards. Then I realized that if I wear it anywhere with my family I'll have to hear stupid jokes about wearing my wedding dress out and blah blah blah. Except it won't be limited to my family. His family will do it too. :sigh: Such are the problems of coming from a sarcastic family and marrying into another one.

I also remembered that I totally wore white to a wedding once, completely by accident. I actually only realized last night (this morning) when I was thinking about my other white (ish) dress. It has flowers and stuff on it and it might be an off-white, but still... nobody called me on it either. There was no mention of it from anyone. I wonder if anybody even noticed... I've always been curious about that. Shouldn't everyone be looking at the bride anyway? Nobody should even know if a guest is wearing white, unless that guest takes a picture with either the bride or groom. In which case, just Photoshop her dress a different color.

Coming Soon: out of context texts from my husband.

Because I think he's funny and everyone has to suffer my terrible sense of humor.

The Giving of Gifts

I've found that one of the hardest things at the holidays is finding the right gift. As I get older my list of people I have to shop for gets longer and longer, which is frustrating because I'm not made of money people. I don't have money trees growing in my backyard, or anywhere in my yard for that matter. If I did, I would just give money. Do you see me giving money? No, you do not. Because I have no money trees. ...Since money is part cloth, would it still grow on a tree? Just like, a cloth tree, right? That kinda makes sense.

Really though, this list thing is becoming an issue. Sometimes, at various points throughout the year, I'll be perusing the internet and come across a gift that I think would be great for someone and then I'll remember that I didn't buy them a gift last year because I didn't think we were that close and if I buy them a gift this year then I'm saying that we are that close and what if they didn't feel the same way and they haven't bought me a gift but now they feel obligated and we have to buy each other gifts next year out of an obligation and not because we like each other. Or worse, they don't buy me a gift and I just feel like a loser giving gifts away without provocation because I don't know what kind of relationship we have.

See how that got out of control so quickly?

I go through this all the time.

Even with people I know I have to buy for, siblings, parents, significant other; it still get complicated. Sometimes I spend months trying to find the perfect gift, the one that makes the receiver think "she really gets me and knows who I am as a person, she pays attention when I talk." But I never find it. And then I'm scrambling at the last minute to come up with something and it ends up being crap. It's like I remember the one thing they used to be really into and I have two days before the gift-giving and I am running out of options damn it! So enjoy your one millionth copy of The Complete Collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle brother, because it's not like I bought you the other nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine copies.

Are those numbers accurate? I have no idea. I don't do numbers. Which never seems to stop me from making number jokes. (Why was six afraid of seven?)

I've found this trend happening lately where I find a gift for someone and make a mental note to go back to it closer to the holidays, because if I buy when I see it, then I'll forget that it's in the house and that person will end up with a dozen gifts to the two that I got everyone else. So I remember it, or bookmark it, whatever. Then November comes around and I start seriously thinking about gifts. Because I tend to shop online I like to get those gifts in as soon as I can so I'm not sitting there like a asshole on Christmas morning handing out IOU's cause I was too cheap to pay for 2-day shipping. And then I see it: this whole time I've been thinking, 'oh she'd love that! this would be perfect! she'll probably cry when she opens this.' Those thoughts are for different gifts. All for the same person. So I've compiled a list. Terrific. Of nearly a dozen items. For one person.

I haven't bought them though. Which is better, somehow. But now I have to narrow down the items and then I come back into the territory of, 'what is this gift saying about how I view our relationship?' This one item is $XX, but I know she'll really love it. On the other hand these two items are even cheaper than that one item and I know she's kind of into this thing. Do I go expensive and get the gift I know the person will really love and hope that they also went the same route, or do I go relatively cheaper and get the gift I know they'll put on a good face for but wish they had gotten something a little more personal?

I think the biggest problem I face isn't a monetary value, or how many people I keep having to buy for. It's that I never know how they're going to shop, so I don't know how I'm supposed to shop. Maybe this is why people put price limits on gift giving.

Is it cool to do that with family?

Home For the Holidays

Since we're coming up on the holidays I've been thinking a lot about family and how you show one another that you care. Growing up our family only saw our extended relatives, aunts cousins grandparents etc., at gatherings before Christmas Day itself. We would get together at my dad's parents early in the month, or sometimes we would actually wait until after Christmas to see my mom's side but we never did anything on the day itself. I remember a few times when we had family over for Thanksgiving but that didn't last long, for whatever reason. My main point here is that Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day were always the days where we just hung out at home as a family and didn't go anywhere or do anything. We called family or friends but we never had anywhere to be or anyone to dress up for. We had a semi-traditional meal on Thanksgiving, but I don't honestly remember if we always ate at the table and for Christmas dad would cut up a ham but we never had an actual meal planned. We would just sit around and veg all day. And I loved that.

Being in a relationship has seriously thrown a kink in that plan. Our first Christmas together I hated the idea that I had to leave the apartment. I was fine with going to my parents house but I would have rather waited a day to go to his parents because I just don't like that on a day when I've been practically trained to be lazy I have to be presentable and punctual. The first Thanksgiving was rough. There was no way I was ready to eat two meals like that in one day. But us going on four years together now (I think?) I'm used to the rushed scheduling.

Last year my parents decided to have Christmas on Christmas Eve. It worked out fantastically. We hung out, got a little drunk, took a nap, rallied, got a little drunk again, and laughed at presents. Then we went home and slept and the next day we went to his parents house. Perfect. For some reason, both years we had to do Thanksgiving on the day itself with his parents. Which I get works for everyone else because they have office jobs where Thanksgiving is a holiday where they don't make money. But I work in retail and we do make money on that day, and the day after. And I have to be there super early when we open. Why is it inconsiderate of me to say, hey sorry in-laws I can't make it because I came home from work at 2:45 this morning and I go back in at 8 tonight for 13 hours and I'd like to sleep a lot because I'll need the energy? But Jeremy brings my love. I like to assume that they would they understand.

So I decided that when we have kids, we're not doing anything for the holidays. We'll see family before or after but on the days itself, I don't want to leave the house. I see no reason to. Getting together on major holidays and birthdays does not make you a family, and taking pictures at that time doesn't show others that you're a family. Keeping in touch throughout the year, calling, texting, hanging out with no motives (like needing to ask your parents for money) or pretext, these things keep you close. Having a few days out of the year to catch up on each others lives seems like cheating at being family. Maybe I'm biased because of my upbringing but getting together to exchange gifts and have a good time doesn't automatically mean it's Christmas to me. It just means that this time everyone brought gifts.

Crap, I still haven't put up my tree!

Being Lazy After a 13-hour Shift

A belated Happy Turkey Day to anyone who celebrated and didn't make a comment about the pilgrims raping the Indians of their land and property. We get it, it's a terrible holiday. Most of them are. Shut up now. (And stop making Zombie Jesus jokes at Easter. You're boring.)

So I got home from work this morning at sometime-between-8-and-9-am and as soon as I got to the living room and made sure the apartment door was shut, I immediately took off all my clothes. Ya know how normally I take off my pants? This morning I just stripped down and went straight into the bathroom to shower. There was no possible way I could go to bed feeling that gross and dirty.

I managed to sleep in some Thursday morning before the required visit to the in-laws but it was only till about 12:30. And I didn't get to nap at all. We went from his parents house to him dropping me off at work. I wasn't up a full 24 hours, thank Christ, but I was still exhausted. There seemed to be a miscommunication with my schedule, as usual, and as a result I had three very different schedules: the one emailed to me, the one on the calender in administration, and the individual one in the system. Two of them said I was scheduled to 7 am, one said 9 am, one said I should have been working 5pm-4:45am M-W. It was all a mess. But we slowed down, and the District Manager said I was doing a good job in replenishment so my manager let me go an hour early. Bless her heart.

I woke up at 2:55 this afternoon. It was awesome. Made no plans for the day except to see a movie with my brother and sister-in-law while they're in town so we can hang out a little before the belated holiday celebrations with our family tomorrow. So it should turn out to be a nice lazy night.