Hey Sarah, what stinks?

It's me.  I'm the one who stinks.  I don't think we realize how important smells are until our lives are ruined by a bad one.  A few years ago sewer gas seeped into our house for a few days and I can't even tell you how many hundreds of times I considered burning the whole place down.  And now I can honestly say that since my dog got sprayed THREE times in a ROW in the FACE by a skunk last week, I love her less.

I love her less because I can barely tolerate the stench I think will probably follow her (and me) around for the rest of her life.  I love her less because she was stupid enough to get sprayed three times, not that it would make that much of a difference smell-wise if she only got sprayed once, but how dumb was that?  If a skunk sprayed you in the face, would you keep chasing it?  I thought border collies were supposed to be smart.  Not this one.  I love her less because she didn't have the decency to wait until the skunk left the deck before she harassed it, so the first time it sprayed her it also sprayed the house, the deck furniture, and the door.  I don't think she thought the whole thing out very well.   SO inconsiderate.

If it was summer I would shave her bald to get rid of the offending fur that is carrying the stench, but no, it's fall so I suppose it would be considered animal cruelty to shave her naked right before winter.  Also, one time I cut her hair short and she looked ridiculous and slinked around in utter embarrassment for about six months while it grew out.  She's very vain so I bet this whole debacle is pretty bad for her too.  I cut off the worst of the hair, around her mane, and she looks pretty silly.

Since I had the scissors out there cutting grossness off of her, I also cut her butt hair because in another example of how stupid the theory of intelligent design is, the hair right around her anus grows longer than any hair on her whole body.  I don't think I have to tell you why that is gross.  Now she looks like she has a radical bob haircut on her butt.  I kind of like the way it looks, but judging by the way she tucks her tail between her legs everywhere she goes, she does not like it.  She would NOT let me take a picture of her back end.  Every time I got her to stand and then pointed the camera at her she would sit.  See?  She seems pretty smart!  But she's not.

Just so she wouldn't feel so alone I also got a bad haircut.  My sister sent me a great picture of my dad yesterday and my hair looks just like his in that picture.

Of course, he is in his sixties and is working outside in the rain so the style is understandable on him.  On me it just looks weird.  So now both Maisy and I smell bad and look weird.  For a while.  Someday the stench will fade, and the hair will grow out, and we will be back to our old sweet-smelling, gorgeous selves.  But probably not for about a year.  

De De De...Depression

"Where are you?"  I've been hearing that for a while now from my peeps on the internet and now that I'm on my way back, I'll tell you where I've been.  I've been depressed.  (HA HA! OMG, that's such a funny topic for a humor blog!) Well, it's true. In the interest of being an over-sharer with a blog, I'll tell you all about it. I debated writing about this at all because it's about the most personal thing about me, my biggest vulnerability and all, and frankly, that's nobody's beeswax.  But maybe someone out there needs a depression buddy and if so: HEY! WE CAN BE DEPRESSED TOGETHER! ;o) !!!  LOL!  Just kidding.  I'm starting to feel better so don't bring me down with your sob stories.  Just kidding!  Just kidding.  (seriously, kidding... boy, kidding looks like a funny word after you write it a bunch:  kidding kidding kidding, kidding kidding....)

I've had bouts of depression since college, but I could deal with it and had devised methods of pulling myself out of it, but it got out of control after my second baby was born.  I got major post-partum depression but didn't tell my doctor because in my crazy, depressed brain I thought if she had any idea how I was really feeling she would call social services and they'd take my kids away.  I didn't want to go on anti-depressants because I thought that was a cop-out and if I was any kind of woman I could beat it on my own.  Then one day I misplaced the checkbook and reacted (and felt) like I had lost a child.  During this same time period I also tried to cook popcorn on the stove "old-school" and it burned and ruined the pan and I felt like a total loser-failure worthless piece of shit.  Yeah, that's right, because I screwed up popcorn.

Then one day I brought my little baby out for a walk in the woods with me on a nice day because I thought that might help lift my spirits.  While I was out there I kept having self-loathing thoughts and feeling guilty that my beautiful new baby was going to have to grow up with an insane mother and I had a split second thought that she would be better off if I left her in the woods.  Someone would find her and she'd be fine.  She'd be better than fine.  A part of me recognized the insanity and screamed to me to GET SOME HELP, CRAZY!  I talked to my doctor and told her that I had been feeling sad and tired and worthless etc etc. and she gave me a depression screening.  According to the test I was clinically depressed and she said it was totally treatable and she didn't once suggest that maybe I should not have custody of children.  She put me on Prozac.  About three weeks later the darkness lifted.  To say I felt better is a total understatement.  It was like night and day.

I've had people ask me what it feels like to be depressed.  It's hard to explain to someone who has never experienced it.  It's not a mood, it's an ever-present smothering darkness. Here are some of my personal symptoms:

being terrified (constant terrifying "what if" thoughts with feelings of terror totally out of sync with the situation)
feeling incredible guilt for no reason
feeling worthless
feeling like I am a drag on friends and family
feeling like a prima donna because I'm preoccupied with how I'm feeling from minute to minute and trying to find some way to make myself feel better.  Doesn't leave much room for thinking of anyone else.
feeling selfish
feeling stupid
having physical pain: heaviness in my chest, dull leg/back/headache
self-loathing - constantly sick to death of myself and my stupid brain.
feeling irritating and irritated by almost everything
hopeless - this is it, I'm never going to feel better.
helpless - there is no cure, I might as well accept this as my life.
feeling rage
loss of control
feeling mentally weak
Am tired all the time but can't sleep for more than an hour or two at a time at night.  Could sleep all day.
bored with everything
Tears squirting out of my eyes unprovoked at inopportune moments.
joyless

The stupid thing about depression is that when you are in the middle of it you don't recognize you are in the middle of it.  You think you can get better if you would just decide to get better.  Since I have been dealing with this for so long, I have become more self-aware and can tell when the depression is rearing its ugly head again.  It usually starts with fear.  I think things like, "what if Kira gets run over by the school bus" or "what if Sam gets hit by a car"  (lots of automobile themed fears).  When I register these thoughts I immediately try to think if maybe I've not been taking my Prozac regularly and most times, sure enough, I've not been the best about taking the meds.  Then, after I get back on and stay on, I feel better again.

I don't want to be on medication.  Who does?  When I first moved to Duluth I was off the Prozac.  I think, if I remember correctly, that after I went on them the first time and got better I thought, "OMG, I'm better.  I don't need medication anymore," and I went off them, and I suppose the stress of moving triggered a new wave of depression, and I then had to find a new doctor. My new (not current, thankfully) doctor insisted that if I wanted to continue with my anti-depressants, I had to have a consultation with a therapist.  I was about as open to that as a clinically depressed young mom can be and I went only because I had no choice.  I didn't see the point because NOTHING WAS WRONG.  I didn't need to talk anything out.  There was no real stress in my life.  My depression was completely biological/chemical/physiological, it was literally in my head.  The guy I went to was a total tool.  He tried so hard to be hippie/liberal/new age.  He had a little fountain on a table and he scotch taped some little plastic turtles to the rim.  He was wearing wool socks with Birkenstocks.  To work.  This was the person I was supposed to turn my mental health over to.  Ugh.  I got through the consultation, and because of the depression screening he gave me and the unstoppable weeping that seemed to make him incredibly uncomfortable for someone who should be trained to deal with people having mental breakdowns, he concurred with the G.P. that I was in fact, depressed. Um, no duh.

Since then, through painful trial and error of going on and off medication, trying less and more medication, I have learned that I will probably forever have post-partum depression.  Pregnancy pushed my already depression-prone brain over the edge.  That's depressing in itself, but what can you do?  Accept it, medicate the shit out of it, and move on, that's what.

If you are experiencing depression you are not alone.  There are LOTS of people that have depression (which kind of makes me feel not-so-spesh) If you have depression, take the advice I gave to myself way back when Kira was a baby, "Get some help,Crazy!"  Tell someone. Do something about it because you don't have to live like that.  Hang in there!

(and when I say "Hang in there" I mean it like this:

Awwwww.... cute!

Not like this:

Awwwww.....

Btw, I am in no way qualified to give any professional advice or be a spokesperson for depression.)

Vertigo and Tim the Snake

Have you ever had vertigo?  I'm having it again.  I woke up, took a shower, said to myself,  "Huh, I feel a little dizzy," and then threw up for about ten minutes which seemed like three hours.  Another example of intelligent design being such a STUPID theory is vertigo.  I'm not sick, I've got gunk in my dainty inner ear passages which inhibits the tiny cilia from flowing around like little feathers and telling my brain where it is in space.  My eyes see that I'm walking around, or bending over, or drying my hair, but the cilia are telling my brain, "Nope.  Sorry.  Eyes must be wrong.  We're still lying down."  And the brain's reaction to the conflicting messages is "THROW UP IMMEDIATELY AND DON'T STOP AT ALL." So that is why I was out on my deck in a towel dry heaving this morning, okay neighbors?  I managed to get a scopolamine patch on and took some Sudafed and then I laid on the couch and didn't move my head a millimeter for two hours.  The patch kicked in.  I looked up scopolamine on the internet tonight and it's pretty serious stuff.  It used to be used for mothers in labor to put them into a "twilight sleep" that didn't eliminate any pain, but worked to cause amnesia effects so the mom wouldn't remember the pain.  So I might never remember writing this.  It's also used as a depressant.  If you know me you know I don't need any depressants.  I could sleep 15 hours a day without any help at all.  It doesn't really help the dizziness, but it totally eliminates the nausea which, if you hate throwing up like I do (and who doesn't?!) is a miracle.  I have to go to bed now, but I'm afraid I will wake up in the same condition tomorrow, so I'm avoiding it.

Also, Sam found a snake in the yard.  It's a tiny Red-Bellied snake and Sam named it Tim.  I love him.  I'm going to decorate his terrarium tomorrow.

Tim

PMS

PMS is horrible.  I don't get it very often, certainly not every month (thank god), but on occasion it hits me like a ton of bricks and it's pretty tough to live with.  For everybody.  I know lots of jokes are made of it, but when you are in the middle of a significant bout of it, it's not very funny because you know what?  When you're in the middle of a bout of PMS nothing is fucking funny. To say I feel a bit touchy is understating.  It's more than cranky or touchy, it's mental, psychotic-feeling, impotent rage. 

PMS used to be put forth as a reason not to elect women to leadership positions because every month they would "go nuts."  I think that not only do we not go nuts when we feel like this, but we do a pretty darn good job of compensating for the true feelings of utter, mindless rage.  Like at the grocery store when the man ahead of me who was buying one loaf of bread challenged the clerk on the price which made her call back for a price check.  Did I feel like ramming my cart into his ankles and screaming, "JUST PAAAAAAAYYYYYY HEEEEERRRRRRR!!!!" in a demon voice? Yes.  Did I do it? Of course not, that would be crazy.   When I was emptying my cart on the belt and got uncomfortably hot, did I rip my clothes off, jump on the belt and scream, "WHY IS IT SO FUCKING HOT IN HERE!!!!!!" and scratch out the eyes of the nearest person?  No.  I calmly removed my jacket and continued emptying my cart even though I felt like I was on fire.  Did I smile and make some mindless banter with the clerk like I usually do?  No.  I couldn't manage it because I was too busy trying not to spontaneously combust.

Usually I'm a nice, easygoing, good humored person, and if every six months or so I feel mentally horrible, would it be so hard to give me a little sympathy and understanding?  Because although I know I'm not the easiest to be around at that time:

 if someone says something even a tiny bit snarky or nasty, it just makes things so much worse:

It would be like if you ran over your foot with the lawn mower and made a mess of your big toe, and not only was I not sympathetic to your ailment, but every day I stepped on your foot and made it a little worse.  Who is the bad guy in that situation?  The person who didn't want to run over his toe, but did because that was what that bitch, Mother Nature, made him do; or the person who steps on the sore toe every day to make a point that your sore toe is no excuse for limping.  (What?  That doesn't even make sense, you say?  Tell me about it!)   I'd say that the person who steps on the sore toe is the jerk, and is risking his life because the person with the sore toe is feeling awful and is developing a craving for hearing you make that choking sound you make when she pokes you in the throat.

I wish the pandas would all just die already

I know this seems to be coming out of nowhere, but it's something that's been on my mind a lot lately. I'm really sick of pandas. I guess it all started when I went to the San Diego Zoo a few years ago and I wanted to see the pandas because everyone always makes such a huge deal about pandas so I wanted to see what the fuss was about. There was a line that was about a mile long of people waiting to see a panda in its den sleeping. What? Why? I didn't stand in the line, but I was intrigued and decided to learn more about pandas.

They live in China, obviously, everyone knows that, but what I didn't know was that they live in a very specific spot in the mountains and only live at specific elevations. Not too high, not too low. (picky picky) Of course, their historical habitat has been taken over by more ambitious and adaptive species, so I guess that's not one of my major beefs with the pandas.

What really drives me nuts about them is this:

Despite its taxonomic classification as a carnivore, the giant Panda has a diet that is primarily herbivorous, which consists almost exclusively of bamboo. However, the Giant Panda still has the digestive system of a carnivore, as well as carnivore-specific genes, and thus derives little energy and little protein from consumption of bamboo. (from Wikipedia)

They will only eat bamboo. And bamboo is not even that good for the stupid pandas. And they are defined by their very genes to be carnivores but don't eat any meat. They won't even eat other plants that might be a little more nutritious. Idiots.

They are mostly sedentary because they derive so little energy from their diet, yet they have to be constantly eating so they can get the tiny bit of nutritional value from the bamboo. They have developed their giant (some say "cute," I say "freakish") heads as adaptations to their ridiculous diets because they had to have stronger jaw muscles to chew the bamboo. You'd think that instead, they'd adapt the digestive system of something that thrives on bamboo if they're so insistent on eating nothing but bamboo, but no, in another example of why intelligent design is such a stupid theory, they have instead developed giant jaws for chewing their worthless food. I'd love to eat nothing but chocolate cake and pita chips but if I did that, I would be malnutritioned and fat, (like a panda) but nobody would think it was cute if I did it.

My last problem with the pandas is the fact that they won't reproduce to save their own species. So humans have tried to get them to mate in captivity by showing them panda porn. (I'm not even kidding. Look it up.) Zookeepers show the pandas videos of other pandas doing it hoping it will get them in the mood. They won't get in the mood because they are too tired from eating nothing but bamboo. They don't have the energy to do it. They'd rather just go to bed and read their book. Then on the off-chance that they do mate, and a baby panda is born, it is teeny and helpless and it's not easy to get the mother to look after it. The fathers have nothing to do with them. If there are two cubs born the mother will let one die so she only has to take care of one. Nice parents!

You need to re-think why you're so in love with pandas.

If this panda would spend more time planning a healthy diet of a variety of foods, and less time playing the flute, I might have more sympathy for the entire species. 

**********************************

A few weeks after writing this post, I learned about a blog called Animal Review on NPR.  They review animals and give them letter grades.  I think they gave the panda an F-.  Their blog is hysterical and I highly recommend reading it.  The review of the porcupine is one of my favorites. 

Why intelligent design is such a stupid theory

In a word; teenagers. Sam is fast approaching teenagehood, his birthday is at the end of the month and he will be thirteen. He's a very nice boy and I'm not expecting any horrific behavior from him but even if he does act like an asshole from time to time in the next ten years I will probably have to write it off as teenager-induced mental illness.

Already there is evidence of the hormones racing through his veins - a creepy little mustache (that he is ridiculously proud of); growing like the incredible hulk, (if the hulk only grew tall and didn't put on any muscle mass); and fits of emotional overload. I can't really blame the guy because his brain is being marinated in new hormones and chemicals at a rate that his little synapses have never experienced. And coupled with the newly marinated brain, his frontal lobe, the part of the brain that is responsible for judgement, reasoning, and emotions, is going to be taking a developmental break for the next several years, in the middle of which he is going to be DYING to drive a car and have sex. Sounds like a mean joke, doesn't it?

Teenagers are as stupid and helpless as toddlers when it comes to navigating the real world, but unlike toddlers, they resent their parents and don't talk a fraction as much as toddlers, so you never know what's really going on in their heads. When they do occasionally tell you what they're really thinking about, the adult instinct is to say, "That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard," because what they said is probably the stupidest thing you ever heard. But, of course, if you say that they won't tell you anything anymore, so you have to bite your tongue and listen to the ridiculous theory about how having a huge snowplow attached to the front of your compact car is a good idea.

I've been thinking about getting full-time work again, but with this teenage thing looming, maybe now is not the best time. Sam will be easy compared to Kira (I hate to even think about that), so perhaps now is not the best time to leave them to their own devices. We've been lulled into complacence while they were in elementary school, but soon the ultimate-parenting starts up again. I hope we are ready.

That, among many other reasons, is why I think intelligent design is such a stupid theory. Another is the fact that the prostate gland, which ALWAYS gets enlarged later in life, goes around the urethra. How dumb is that?

If I was going to intelligently design a human, the control center (brain) wouldn't be teetering on the top of a skinny neck, just begging to be hacked off or cracked open, it would be in the center of the body. And eyes would be on stalks and would be able to regenerate. I could write a book on how I would design a human, but I won't bore you with any more details because I don't want you to be thinking "that is the stupidest thing I ever heard."

How would you design a human?