This blog has been temporarily disconnected

After spending three weeks in Denmark, I came back to south Florida with a lot of questions. I'm wondering how my relationship is going to progress, which direction I want it to head in, and what I'm ready for. I'm wondering if I need to move for the time being and save some money, or move just because my neighbors are crackhead psychos, or move because I want to get out of Florida, ASAP. I've been thinking about Atlanta, New York, and Maine. Why Maine? I don't know. I like Maine.

I realized that there are more people in Copenhagen that I can call and go meet for a cup of coffee than there are in south Florida. I know that I've isolated myself for three years, and I'm really ready to get out and get a social life back. I'm missing a sense of community that I've been missing for a long time. I know that I needed to put my life on hold for a while to deal with my then-boyfriend's newly diagnosed autism, and then single parenting, but now I'm REALLY starting to feel like Sandra Bullock in "The Net", and I have to get out of the house.

Since I work from home (read: no coworkers, talks to self throughout workweek), and am a single mom with no co-parent backup (HONEY, I'M GOING TO THE STORE! HONEY?) , it ain't easy to suddenly unleash yourself on a city and develop a network. I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I feel like I've reached the end of a chapter, and I desperately need to turn the page.

Single parenting has been a bigger challenge in my life than I ever could have imagined, and impacted me on more levels than I ever dreamed of. It's been tough. I know it will continue to be a challenge, but I am done bitching about it.

The purpose of this blog was to give myself a voice; a dumping ground where I could let go of whatever it was I was going through and try to make sense of it all by reading it back to myself. I feel that I've accomplished that, and am successfully raising a little girl, where I really thought things would have gone up in flames a long time ago.

So I'm going to get out of this blog for a while. I'm tentatively working on a new one, to start my new chapter with.

Because what would reality be without an accompanying blog?

NEW BLOG

:)

Hello, you must be going

We're back in Florida.

It's 80 degrees out.

I just dropped the Kid off at daycare.



(Not that I don't absolutely love parenting...)

When Two Blogs Collide

This morning we had brunch at Zakabona with Kristian and Karolina.

I started reading Kristian's blog and just liked the way he wrote and got in touch with him... and have been bugging him ever since. Today we got to meet in person (because who doesn't want to hang out with their stalker?), and he took the Kid and I to a fantastic brunch.

He's been dating Karolina for about 8 months, and they live in Sweden. She's from Poland, and she's currently getting her PhD in Electrochemistry. Which, as you probably already know, is a branch of chemistry that studies chemical reactions which take place at the interface of an electron conductor and an ionic conductor and which involve electron transfer between the electrode and the electrolyte.

Yeah. She tried to explain it to me, then saw the "DUH" expression on my face and gave up. I googled it. Aren't they cute?

Then Kristian took a photo of The Kid and I, and magically erased my eyebrows through the wonder of photography.

The Kid had some beautiful-looking pancakes, and the rest of us had enormous plates of food containing approximately five samples from every food group. I would have taken a picture of it, but I was way too busy eating it.

Kristian and Karolina brought The Kid a My Little Pony in her FAVORITE colors, pink and purple.

The Kid jumped on Kristian's lap and demanded his attention, and Karolina helped My Little Pony with her coiffure.

I ate.

A fun time was had by all. And I can safely say that, because Kristian stopped posting on his blog, so he won't be saying anything different.

HA HA! HA HA! I GET THE LAST WORD!!

:)

The Secret to His Success

My boyfriend is independently wealthy, and I have recently unlocked the mystery behind his great success.

No, he's not Tony Robbins.

He follows everyone around the house and shuts off all the lights.

"So I'll just finish up this report and meet you at the cafe at.... ACK! GLAUCOMA!"

"Oh, sorry. Are you in here?"

He left earlier to buy firewood (since it's 15 degrees out and none of the radiators are on) and we met at the door as I was coming in and he was going out.

"Hey, can you shut off the TV?" he called over his shoulder.

"Yeah, sure", I mumbled, while reading a message on my cell phone.

He stuck his head back in the door. "That is, unless you wanted to watch it."

Thoughtful.

Scene from a bedroom window

That white stuff on the ground is newly-falling snow.

Yucky, yucky.

That dark thing pictured below is the wood-burning stove. Which I could not light if my life depended on it. I can light a match. I can set fire to newspaper. I can correctly identify wood that can be burned. (It's in a giant firewood thingy next to the stove). I cannot get the whole process to work together.

I just want to go home and lay on a hot rock and bring my blood back to its normal temperature.

Send me an SMS, because I'm European now.

Have you ever fallen asleep on your boy/girl/tranny friend on the sofa, and realize, as they quietly extricate from your full-body hug to go and answer the door, that you've drooled all over their shirt in such a way that it cannot possibly go unnoticed?

Yeah, me neither.

Denmark is cold. There is "sunlight" (and I say "sunlight" as one can only assume it is light from the sun, although it is lifeless and gray) from 9am - 3pm. I have stolen all of Alan's socks and permanently planted myself in front of his wood-burning stove.

The Kid is having a fantastic time, and is even tolerating the same cartoons she watches at home being dubbed over in Danish. I have no idea how much she understands, but she was hopping around the other day, exclaiming "Ved du hvad?!" ("You know what?!").

She's never worn so many layers before. I'm never on time for anything here, because we have to have dry hair, tights, two pairs of pants, shirts, sweaters, hats, gloves.... back in Florida, we step out of the shower into shorts, a tee shirt, and a pair of flip flops, and we're on our way. Your hair dries on it's own in 10 minutes. Oh, Florida. The things I've taken for granted...

Everyone keeps remarking on how polite and well-behaved The Kid is. Which I can understand, especially in comparison to The Boyfriend's two girls. (Cough, cough, cough.) When they're good, they're very, very good. And when they're bad.... I pack up my shit and threaten to stay with Thomas indefinitely.

Which Thomas is super-excited about, I'm sure.

Have you ever been on an extended trip with your significant other, and had a daily battle occurring between your regularly scheduled menstrual cycle and a tiny birth control pill that was absolutely detrimental to your sex life?

SURE, I'D LOVE TO HAVE SEX! I JUST NEED TO CRY, EAT A KILO OF DARK CHOCOLATE, AND TAKE SOME MOTRIN! DON'T START WITHOUT ME!

Yeah, me neither.

We're going home on Monday. I just read that the temperature in Florida is going down to 39 degrees.



What.

The.

Fuck.

Well, at least I have warm clothes that aren't from the late 80's, that the rest of the Floridian population will be dragging out of their closets from a box marked "Winter Clothes", which is just the clothes they moved down to Florida with, twenty years ago.

Holy Hormona, I need to go find some prescription medication.

Denmark. Day One.

If I had to stay at home with a small child all day, I would be.... drunk. Like, all the time.

We arrived yesterday. We're jet lagged, and I'm having technical difficulties with my laptop, so there's really nothing for me to do during the day but parent. I've cleaned everything around me in an effort to avoid intensive Mommy & Me time, and my boyfriend will be home in a half an hour to admire his gleaming home and folded laundry. So I've unnecessarily and prematurely raised the housework bar for myself here, and am basically fucked for eternity. Good one.

Three year olds. They are their own species. I don't know which one, but I know it isn't Mine. The Kid has recently taken to "Look What I Can Do!" tricks, which basically consist of her screaming "MOM! MOM! MOM! MOM!" until she has my attention, and then I have to watch her do something not repeatable or remotely worth looking up for, like shrieking and flailing her elbow in the air simultaneously. And she does this about 300 times a day. Holy fuck. She also makes up her own songs, but doesn't get any further than the first line, which she then loudly repeats over and over and over. The last one was "EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS" sung monotonously in various keys at the top of her lungs.

It's so funny to be with her in a country where children are so doted on - she tripped on the street earlier, and five people stopped and turned around to give her a big "AWWW" in sympathy. Meanwhile, I'm still dragging her down the street by her arm, figuring she'll right herself eventually. Come on, it's cold. You're three already, pull yourself together.

I'm going to go press my face against the glass pane in the front door and wait for Alan to get home.

The Piss in Yer Pants Gang knows my secret.

It's Friday night, and I'm flipping through channels. I've been stuck on psychic/medium/I see dead people tv shows lately, and I'm jonesing for a fix. I have no idea what happened to Lisa Williams, but John Edward should be on soon, thank goodness.

I somehow ended up watching Most Haunted. It's not because the show is good. The premise of the show is as follows: "Host Yvette Fielding is joined by a ghost-hunting team to investigate Europe’s spookiest sites. As experts from the paranormal field, the team attempts different methods and experiments to try and communicate with the dead."

Except every time there's a fucking noise in the building they're "investigating", every cast member jumps and shrieks like a 6-year old girl at a slumber party.

It's not like they wandered into an abandoned mental hospital because their car broke down and cell phones haven't been invented yet, THEY'RE LOOKING FOR GHOSTS.

Take right now, for example. They're in an old prison. It's night time. They're all British, and they have a film crew.

"So roight now, Oi yam walking down this corridor, and DIDJA HEAR THAT?!" Cast members cling to each other as the camera pans the room.

"Spirit, if yer there, bang on tha' window". (A muffled thump is heard as a sound man halfheartedly kicks a wall with the tip of his work boot.) "OH, FOOK! WHAT THE BLIMEY HELL WAS THAT? OH, JAYSUS CHRIST!" (OK, I may be muddling my accents, here.)

Thankfully, the crew has night vision cameras to catch the terrified, hyperventilating expressions of the cast members, I mean, experts.

"ONCE FER YES, TWO FER NO - DO YOU MEAN OOS ANY HARM?" (Thump.)

"Holy God, DIDJA HEAR THAT?!" (whispering loudly) "It means us harm!"

Eek.

By the way, I just gave birth

I forgot to mention that last week, I had another baby. The Kid has a brother!

They finally got together for a weekend in Orlando. He's 15, and about a foot taller than I am, and I love him. He's the Kid's half-brother, and his mom and I have been trying to get them together for a while, and we finally had an opportunity.

We spent two days at Universal Studios. He carried the Kid around, and held her hand, and showed her the baby dinosaurs being born.

He and I spent an evening at the resort's fitness center together, and I made the mistake of going on the machines after him. I lay down on the leg press, still on his settings, and......JUSTYN! THIS MACHINE IS BROKEN! Oh, no, wait. It's just set to three times my body weight. Let me just slide this down a little to..... 10lbs. There we go! JUSTYN! WHAT DOES THIS MACHINE DO?? Your shoulders. JUSTYN, I HAVE NO SHOULDER MUSCLES!!

He had a wonderful time.

He also enjoyed sitting next to me on all the scary rides. He promptly went home and blabbed to his mother, "Mom, Mary screamed like a total girl".

Helloooooooo...........

I lost 3 pounds!

Guess where?

This past Wednesday, I went in for breast reduction surgery.

It was a tough decision (made especially difficult by the recent death of Kanye West's mother). I'm not a big fan of general anesthesia.

Plus, I heard they put a catheter in your hoo-hoo during surgery. Also my least favorite thing.

But since my pregnancy three years ago, my boobs just haven't been the same. Not that they haven't been spectacular - they were often featured in an well-respected international magazine.

However, "tribal" just isn't my look.

So Wednesday morning at 5:30am, I drove myself over to the hospital, lay there in a hospital gown, and tried not to freak out. I was so nervous, I had gotten about 45 minutes of sleep. My parents took my daughter the night before, because her school first opens at 7:30. Thankfully, my girlfriend Maria showed up at 6:30am to sit with me and hold my hand until they wheeled me in. She had the surgery 6 months ago, and was a giant help. She even took me shopping last week for all the front-clipping sports bras I'd be wearing for the next month. It was really good to have her there. She always makes me laugh, and will never tell anyone what my ass looks like when my hospital gown flies open.

Around 1pm, I woke up in recovery, only mildly aware of pain in my chest area. I groggily asked the nurse for more pain medication, and got some morphine. OOOH, MY FAVORITE! I was checked out around 3pm, and my little parents carefully helped me shuffle out to the car, with my mother eyeing my boobies the entire time.

"Holy cow, you're so flat! Did he leave you anything??"

Me: "Shut up, Ma". Except I was on so many drugs it sounded more like "SSSALLGHMMFF."

For the next three days, I stayed at my parents', while they helped me fluff my pillows, reach my ginger ale, and pull my pants on and off to pee. My mom also emptied my surgical drains, which was pretty gross. I think my dad fed me a yogurt at one point. It was nice.

I came home today, and I have nothing to do but watch Intervention and eat fruit and lay around. My boobs are back where they used to be, and after a month, I won't even have to wear a bra.

The pain isn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be, but I still have a whole bottle of Vicodin left!

New boobs, drugs, and lots of TV. This has been the best week EVER.