Just a little patience...

Reason #47 on why I am like a child. I have ZERO patience..none, zip, zilch, the big goose egg. Example, I just spent 30 minutes wrestling with our laptop, which has decided to die for no apparent reason, and I actually think my blood pressure is higher. Couple that with the morons I drove behind on the way home, the fact that I couldn't get the cork out of the wine bottle, therefore pushing the cork into the wine and having to strain it as not to drink cork, and feeling my shoulders at the same level as my ears whenever I have to wait for ...anything...these things are not good.

I think Smitty thought it was cute or "quirky" when we first met. I do not think he subscribes to that theory anymore. I am mostly not allowed to go grocery shopping with him at Wal-Mart, because when people clog the aisles with their 7 children or their giant asses, I become unglued and quite belligerent, and he is afraid he will have to defend my honor or pick me up off the floor after Miss Redneck USA punches me for saying in what I think is a whisper, "Why don't you have more kids?"

The other night, there was a bug on the wall. Keep in mind, if it had just been a ladybug, like Smitty LIED to me and said it was, it would've been fine. But it was a spider, #2 behind sharks and before cows on my list of things that terrify me, so I stared at him until he got up to kill it. I imagined that after I discovered its hiding place on the wall, it was annoyed and would crawl in my ear and have baby spiders in my brain if it weren't destroyed. Perfectly logical, I thought, but Smitty said this was "crazy talk," whatever that is.

I remember the night before I moved into my dorm my freshman year, I was lying in my bed at my parents', leisurely reading. I may've even been writing about this most auspicious occasion, the "last" night in my childhood bed before college, and a spider crawled next to me in the bed. I screamed, jumped up, combed every inch of my room and decided, screw nostalgia, I'm sleeping in my sister's room my last night before college because I've angered the spider and it will bring a tiny mafia to kill me in my sleep. This would obviously keep me from going to college and realizing my dream of becoming an entertainment lawyer (which was my dream at the time) ...so crazy talk, I think not!

I'm healthier....and crankier.....

So, I REALLY quit smoking, and I started exercising at the urging of my quivering stomach muscle that wants its time in the sun....and it's been weird. I haven't really wanted to smoke, and I've actually looked forward to exercising. Of course, I also had a dream where I got to eat unlimited cheeseburgers...which is weird because in real life, I eschew cheeseburgers. Unless it's a swiss mushroom burger, I don't understand cheeseburgers, but clearly my subconscious understands a disturbance in the force.

It hasn't helped all that much that work has been crazy since my newfound health/Lent/don't-want-to-die-young initiative, but pretty much, it's never a good time to do the things you don't want to do. Stupid logic. I detest logic. My creative mind knows that logic exists as a thing, but I can pretty much always find a way to talk my way out of it. Sometimes, it works; sometimes, it doesn't. Smitty is on to my plan, so this rarely works with him, but sometimes, I can show my boobs and get away with it.

It seems grossly unfair that our bodies deteriorate as we get older. We don't even appreciate our lives fully until we hit about 28-ish, so it seems like there should be some kind of warning, like at work, like you get a first warning "the situation is concerning; conditions need to improve," then a second warning, "you may want to start exercising and stop eating pizza after 10 p.m.," and then "LOOK, WE HAVE GIVEN YOU AMPLE WARNING; PREPARE FOR BACK FAT AND REDUCED METABOLISM."  I think that would get some attention. I know I would've prepared. This was more like a gradual downslide. When I've been content in relationships, I get lazy about exercise and such. Shouldn't we be rewarded for that kind of comfort level? We're happy; give us unrelenting metabolism. I'm just saying.

So, whatever, I'm gonna try to get up in the morning and work out. I hate working out. If I can write my book soon, perhaps I can afford whatever surgery lets you not have to work out to be an ideal size. That makes me healthy, right? As long as I'm a societally-acceptable size, I think it works..and I need a boob lift. There, I'm done.

The weight of water...and cheese...and fried stuff

I hate weight...and money. Those are two things I think you should just be able to say "poof, make it this..." and be done with it.

I was about 102 lbs and a size 4 when I graduated from high school; my weight did the typical college fluctation, but it didn't actually happen in earnest until my sophomore and junior years. I think my metabolism slowed down, along with the influx of pizza and lack of sleep. Stupid sleep...oh, and I didn't exercise at all..still don't. However, now at 32, I'm a size 14, and I believe at last weigh, I'm at 180. That's right, I revealed the number....at great personal risk..lol. Yikes! This is not acceptable.

It is a small comfort that I still have quite the irresistible, winsome face...(and modesty), but geez, what's up with this? I see where there should be a muscle in my stomach, hiding, waiting for the cessation of cheese and bread before it will come out to stay. I am starting a health regiment, this week. I decided not to make it a New Year's resolution, as I never keep those, but I am starting a 2010ish resolution, as not to commit to anything and give myself lashings should I fail. I WILL quit smoking for good, and I WILL start working out. I will be a size 8 by the end of this year.


I'm sure my size 4 days went the way of the 1990s, but I think a size 8 is an attainable goal. I lost a lot of weight when I lived in Pennsylvania and was at that size in 2005, I know it can be done. I want to be healthy when we have a child, I don't want to gain more processed cheese on top of processed cheese when I'm pregnant. It helps to have Smitty who says I'm beautiful no matter what (partial LIAR), but I also don't want him to ever think that once we got together, I said, "There, I've hooked you, I'm done...it's sweatpants 'til I die!" (Incidentally, I don't even own any actual sweatpants, it's a metaphor)

So, there. The gauntlet is thrown. I've put it out there, I must actually work toward these things, lest be thought a hypocrite (wouldn't be the first time), but this is actually important to me. No joke, diabetes is rampant in my family, and I have high cholesterol even when I'm not Shamu's twin sister, so the things I could let slide in my 20s, along with skincare, sleep deprivation, and my credit score, must actually be addressed now. Boo...and a backhanded yay.

A few thoughts on Valentine's Day .... and stuff

I have a love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day. I have memories of awesome Valentine's Days in high school where we had very grown-up dinner parties for my friends and their significant others, (Amanda made ziti) and I have a Valentine's Day memory from when I was living in Philadelphia where we had a perfectly pleasant evening until too much talking led to his saying he wasn't ready for a commitment, and I broke up with him...so it kinda runs the gamut.

Smitty and I don't really pay too much attention to it.  Last year, we really wanted to eat at Olive Garden and figured going at lunch would be safe, as not to have a wait. There was an hour wait at lunch...so we went to Buffalo Wild Wings and had a delectable Valentine's Day lunch of wings and fried pickles. We don't go all out. We, as we are tonight, stay in, spend time together, and make a really good meal for us to enjoy. It's so much easier when everything just works. After YEARS of questionable dating decisions, I just "knew" when I met this tall fellow, that this was different. We were like peas and carrots...or gin and tonic...

I used to be the Queen of the Nightlife. If there was something going on, I was there..usually until 4 a.m. when people began kicking me out of their house. And since I met Smitty, I know why. Something huge was missing from my life, and I didn't even know it. And how grateful am I that I met him at a time when I had mostly gotten everything I wanted to do out of my system. I was engaged when I was 20.  Glaring incompatibilities aside, if I had gotten married at 20, I would have missed out on so many things that I needed to discover about myself in order to actually be a good wife.

If I had gotten married then, I never would've worked at the Commercial Dispatch, and even though that job was pure nuts sometimes, I met awesome people I am still friends with, and I sometimes look back on it and actually miss working in newspapers, except it was chaos, and the hours are not conducive to a normal life. I got to live completely by myself...with Norton, who is still the best dog EVER. I got to pack up my entire life and move to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for a job I had no clue about without knowing a single soul in the city...that was character-building, people. I had a cab driver yell at me because I cut him off, I had girls call me a very unpleasant name for asking directions to the freeway, and I had swingers offer to let me be a "secondary" to carry a child for them..srsly...and they were my landlords, which led to my finding a new apartment..stat!

But I'm so not done with my list of things to do...I still want to learn to play guitar (that crazy, psychotic "teacher" in Philly will NOT deter me), I will write a book and be ridiculously famous, I want to have ONE baby...a boy..Smitty says if we don't have a boy, we'll keep trying, but I feel he must be joking...I am actually fine with a girl or a boy, but am pretty set on the "one" child thing. I think that's all we can handle. We're very self-involved people with no patience...well, he has no patience, I am a paragon of patience...(it's true..mark it)

So, I'm just saying...thank you, love gods, for my not getting married at 20 and living a full, adventurous life and continuing to do so with a man who makes me laugh, oh how he makes me laugh. I never thought I would actually find someone who honed in on things like funny voices that only I delight at and would do them...JUST to make me laugh. He makes me mashed potatoes when I'm sick and that's all I want even though he tries to force-feed me more substantial food, he lets me put my icy cold feet on him at night, he listens to my weird, deviated septum noises when my  nose is being weird, and he always takes out the trash. I could go on and on for about 3 pages, but I won't. I'm lucky. Seriously lucky.

Randomness...what I do best

I don't really have a topic in mind for this blog, but I felt like writing..probably because it's been a looong couple of weeks, and I'm very excited to have tomorrow off...whoo!

I had a flash back to college when I hated going to class and someone told me "If you don't do what you're supposed to, you'll never appreciate time off. It will have no meaning." I understand that, I really do, although if I won the lottery, I think I'd probably be okay doing nothing..I'm just saying.

Smitty told me he saw a coyote in our yard, and now I am constantly on the lookout for feral woodland creatures waiting to eat me or the dogs every time I get out of the car. This is no way to live. I'm hoping his eyesight was just really, really bad that night, and it was just a mangy dog. That's what helps me sleep at night.

Don't drive a Hummer. Unless you're at war or a rapper, you are a douche bag if you're driving a Hummer through rural America. I'm sorry, but it's true. Also, I don't understand these weird, cowboy boot-looking shoes guys are wearing these days that have this long, weird toe part. It makes their feet look 10 feet long. What are those shoes about?

I finished Pat Conroy's book "South of Broad." It was so good, I can't describe it, but wow, it was depressing. I was going to start John Irving's new one, but I think I might have to read something light and trashy first, lest I commit literary suicide from the utter despair in these books. I'm thinking of re-reading "Catcher in the Rye" or "Franny and Zooey" as a tribute to J.D Salinger..what a bummer that was. I'm gonna be really upset when all the good writers start to die...like good actors..what do we do when Al Pacino, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, etc...start to die?? That will suck; who will replace them? Zac Ephron? I don't think so.

I'm off to finish my vodka tonic and drink in my impending day off..

Just to give you an idea...

I hate when people blame their parents for their behavior or lots in life. Unless your childhood resembles the movie "Precious," that pisses me off. If your chief complaint is that your parents like your sibling better or you didn't get to take guitar lessons, you don't get to use your childhood as a crutch. Excuses along those lines make me angry.

Conversely, I do blame my parents and immediate family for my some of my completely aberrant behavior. I make no bones about it. In the way that all women turn into a version of their mothers and all men turn into a version of their fathers, some things you can't fight. Your family leaks into your subconscious whether you want them to or not....and so begins my tale...I'm going to give a brief description of distinguishing characteristics of various family members and say...I'm lucky I turned out as the muted whackjob you all know and love:

1. My grandmother (also known as Mamaw) -- God bless her, where do I start? When I was about 7 years old, we were riding back right after getting our hair cut. It was just after sunset, and it was foggy. She turned to me and said, "What would happen if we just dropped off into nothing?" I was like, "WHAT? What do you mean?" She says, "Well, people disappear all the time, we could just disappear into thin air and nobody would know. Do you ever think about that?" Umm..NO, at 7 years old, I did not think about that, but she did introduce the idea into my head, so I didn't sleep for about 2 days until I asked my dad about it, to which he said, "Don't listen to your damn grandmother."

Also, to this day, I do not get into a car without looking in the backseat, because every single time my sister and I came to her house in the town of Macon, Mississippi, with 2,500 people and almost no crime rate, even now, she would yell, "Check the backseat! Someone could be waiting back there to kill you!" I always used to think if there really were someone back there, they'd be like, "Damn you, old lady, you ruined my plan!" and then they'd slink away to hide in someone else's car..

2. My grandfather - He passed away 8 years ago this month, and his birthday would've been Monday, so I've been thinking of him lately. He was a writer and highly interested in politics..hmm...think he influenced me? And he had the most offbeat sense of humor and adventure, I'm not sure I can do it justice. One time, he was angry a neighbor's tree was dripping sap on his car and into their yard, so he poisoned the tree in the middle of the night. When it "mysteriously" died, the neighbor was baffled, but my grandfather was delighted. He never specifically voiced that deed to us, but he told my grandmother, which was like telling us anyway.

He once told me that reading different things I had written, specifically my newspaper column from college, was like "watching a parade go by." I still think it's the best compliment I've ever gotten, even having received compliments from published authors, magazine editors, PhD's and renowned photographers. When I was little, and my grandmother and mom went shopping or whatever, and I begged, begged, begged not to go (I abhor shopping), he would babysit me, and we would go on "adventures." We would walk to our church and "perform" our own sermons, picking out our favorite hymns, reading our favorite Bible verses. I didn't think about it until he died and I read a eulogy including that memory, that nobody else knew we did that, because it was our time together, precious time that we kept between us like co-conspirators.

3. My sister -- If not for my sister, I would be in a padded room somewhere, but we did not always get along...oh, no...I can remember having a pulling hair, slapping, sitting on each other fight when she was in college, which would make me at least 12 or 13, which frankly reflects more embarrassingly on her than me, but, nonetheless.

There's also the infamous peeing in her shampoo incident....the quick breakdown for those who don't know this story -- when she got married, she was the ultimate Bridezilla. She was living at home, and she used ALL of the hot water every morning when she got up, before I could take a shower. I asked her in what I thought was a pleasant tone if she could leave me some hot water, and she said, and she denies it to this day, but I swear she said it, "Emily, I know you're jealous, but this time is about me. So you just need to deal with that." So, I peed in her shampoo. I also put glue in her mascara, little bits of Doritos in her blush, and rubbed her toothbrush in the toilet, but it was the shampoo that was really the piece de resistance. Did I mention we get along really, really well now?? Seriously, she and I have the kind of bond you can only get by being surrounded by nutcakes most of our lives..

I can't detail my parents just at the moment...that would take a loooong time and more introspection than I feel like summoning right now...

Pitter patter of.....nothing (yet)

So, I had a moment of abject terror/excitement/relief this past week when I was certain I was pregnant, but it turns out I'm not. Mother Nature was messing with me a bit, it seems, b/c my monthly visitor was WAY late, and I even took two pregnancy tests due to the fact that the first one was expired, and I was sure there was no way it could still be good. Apparently, it didn't matter..the funny thing is, I was actually kinda disappointed when the second test was negative, and Smitty seemed a bit down as well..which means, yay, we're finally ready to not freak the hell out when we talk about having kids...major step for Team Smith.

So, now everybody asks if we're trying, which, if you think about it, is basically just asking, "So, are you guys gonna have sweaty, unprotected monkey sex?" (at least, that's what I envision) And the short answer is no, we're not actively trying. I'm still taking my Pill, and we're not purposely trying to be fruitful, but the long answer is that we have discussed "actively" trying toward the end of this year, which is a pretty big deal.

Emily a mommy? It still doesn't quite jibe in my head, although I do enjoy talking about myself in third person..try it, it's fun..I'm good with other people's kids, but then I get to leave them with their parents after I've plied them with sugar and bad words..kidding, I don't do the bad words, but I did let my niece have popsicles for breakfast right before my nephew was born. I thought it would be nice for her to do something special since she was a little apprehensive about sharing her parents with a brother. I relate to kids, hell, I probably relate to toddlers better than I do with people my own age. I understand they want to eat, sleep, and poop. I hear ya, if that was my full day and someone rocked me to sleep, I'd be a  happy camper.

So, we may be Mom and Dad by next summer, and Smitty will be the best disciplinarian, and I will be the best storyteller. I think we can balance each other out, but Lord knows, I hope they get Smitty's coordination and math skills. I have other things to offer, like a love of monkeys and an uncanny ability to list state capitals..these are useful things, too..