Yesterday's hurricane became a Tropical Depression. That sounds like the saddest umbrella drink, ever.I panicked and bought 3 cans of Vienna Sausages.Prior to becoming a parent, my hurricane preparation consisted of me going to the supermarket, usually after the rain had started to avoid the crowds, and coming home with beer and Pop Tarts. Pop Tarts because it's breakfast. Or a snack. Definately dessert. Most definately an MRE, and it comes in much better colors than regular MRE's. Pink with sprinkles, for example. And beer, because you might as well be drunk. Plus it's liquid, to avoid dehydration in a crisis. (College, schmollege.)Now that the universe has put me in charge of another human being, I have a fully stocked pantry, a full refrigerator, large amounts of ice and Sterno cans, candles, and I was up all night doing laundry and vacuuming, because God forbid I can't see the vacuum lines in my carpeting when the electricity gets knocked out. I have canned food from every food group, and I don't just mean the Elf food groups, either. And now I'm moving in a month, and I know I'm going to wind up packing canned food. I also have a full tank of gas. I did donuts in the parking lot at work just because I was giddy from avoiding all the panic-riddled gas station lines the day before. Whee!
While pregnant, I was sure I was carrying The Family Guy's Stewie Griffin. I would have a homicidal infant that would stare at me with a mixture of curiosity and revulsion, and address me as "my good woman".Thankfully, my daughter is a complete dork (phew!), who likes to wear her plastic drum like a helmet and run in circles, flailing her left arm and shouting "Oh, crap!"I think most of my fears during pregnancy stemmed from my own adoption. Not fully understanding the parasite that had attached itself to my innards, I thought it was waiting only to grow sufficiently so that when it burst through my stomach like "Alien", I would surely die.Becoming a mother has forced me to truly understand myself, so that I can understand what I am giving to my daughter. In my 30's, I find myself dealing with my own identity on a very raw level for the first time.I imagine being presented to my (adoptive) parents as a garden seed. With the best intentions, they planted me in ground and promised to love and nurture me. They made sure I had plenty of sunlight and nutrients and water, but what if they were treating me like a geranium seed, and I was really a cactus, or a stalk of corn? What if I was a peace lily, and didn't like direct sunlight? And now, what if I've been "playing" a geranium all my life, but I could be giving my daughter something cleaner? Something more... real?Should I be I a product of my environment, or was there another plan for the Optimal Me?I have absolutely no idea what will prevent me from raising a meth addict whore. If I have no idea who I am, what am I passing on to her?At this point, I find myself making mental lists of my own qualities, like Julia Roberts at the end of the Runaway Bride:Maggie: Benedict. Ike: Arnold. Maggie: I love Eggs Benedict, I hate every other kind. I hate big weddings with everybody staring. I'd like to get married on a weekday while everybody's at work. And when I ride off into the sunset, I want my own horse. Ike: Should I be writing this down?I hate eggs. Period. I like Django Reinhart. Nothing makes me happier than a full afternoon of constant rain. Fall is the most important season. Everyone should be able to bike to work. Walking in heels on a marble floor gives me a heightened sense of purpose. I can't make coffee. I think I was a trapeze artist in a former life.
When I got a haircut last week, two other people had to do the drying. Apparently, my stylist (and I use the terms "my" and "stylist" together approximately once, annually) had recently gotten a boob job. The rest of the planet, somehow aware of the healing ritual associated with breast augmentation, had forbidden the stylist from holding a hair dryer up above her liver level. I have no idea what is involved in any sort of plastic surgery (I was thankful to be getting a haircut), so I just remained quiet and stared at her boobies.Feeling aesthetically empowered from the haircut, I decided to get a pedicure as well, and headed over to the nail salon. Saturday morning at the nail salon is plastic-boob-a-rama. Against the back wall, high-maintenance-looking women daintly extracted themselves from their kitten heels and flicked themselves into brand-new pedicure chairs that looked like oversized La-Z-Girls on the Starship Enterprise. I flung off a flip flop as well, and hopped into a chair. The owner, a metrosexual, 5-ft. tall Vietnamese guy with a barbed wire tattoo and more gel than hair, beamed proudly as I examined the new pedi chair. It had a remote with 700 buttons. I pushed them all. The "kneading" option was nice, but when I finally got to "random", "full body", and "HIGH", the chair was bucking me like a drunk on a mechanical bull.Normally, one is probably expected to let out a sudden, restrained, "Ooh!" and power off, but I kept on truckin'. Women tried to look up casually from the manicure tables to see what the noise was (nice fake stretch, there, blondie) but I wanted to see how long I could ride my chair until someone finally burst out laughing. Ten minutes later, a blinking red light informed me that the chair had either cycled out, or I had killed it. I kept flipping through my Cosmo like nothing happened, and left, quietly humming "Sister Christian" to myself.MOTORIN'!What's your price for flight?And finding Mr. Right?You'll be alright .... tonight
At this very second, I am 100% certain that a vast, clandestine network of Super Bloggers are high-fiving their own foreheads and IM'ing the "piety smirk" emoticon to one another.When the elastic waistband of one geek cinches, it is felt by all.Do I need to be heard?Loved?Acknowledged?CHECK! More importantly, however, I need a reason to keep shouting, "Shut up! I'm working on my blog!" at the office. Won't it be ever so much more funnier now.
