Meaning in the Meaningless

We are both sitting in bed working at 10:30pm on a Friday night. I have been throwing a new movie in the DVD every so often – the choices tonight center around “slightly sad, yet meaningful” which I figured would match our moods. We have had a rough week both with me thinking I was dying, and work kicking our collective asses…and I figured maybe we could find meaning in all of it just as they do in Garden State, Life as a House and Million Dollar Baby. If we are up much later I will have to pull out For Love of the Game and Magnolia. We will find meaning in this madness by God!

Work is HARD!

I could use this heading on almost everything I write these days, no? I am trying to do two jobs and am not feeling very successful at either one. The hours are crazy, the support from many of the team members is non-existent, and it seems to matter to nobody but me. So why do I keep slogging through the crap, when all it does is make me (more) crazy? I cannot stand to be part of a failed exercise or do anything half-assed. I am insane like that. So, to quote Liar Liar, what I am going to do is piss and moan like an impotent jerk, and then bend over and take it up the tailpipe.

I also have a looming feeling that my planned vacation for the first week of January is going to never happen. I cannot see how all of the things at work will be able to just sit on a shelf for a week while I try to wind down and potty train some toddlers. I will be AMAZED if I get to take even one uninterrupted day… either way, I am not stepping foot in that damned building. If I have to work at all, it is happening from home in my pajama pants and slippers. I am hot like that.

Home-life is awesome though…so perhaps it balances out? The boys are endlessly cute and funny and mostly a joy to be around. I cannot resist Cole’s amazingly cute “Mommy, are you going to play with me?” even if I am in a hurry to get to work…so I have to play cars for just a little bit. And then there is Roark’s “I like you mommy” – which of course melts me into a giant gooey mom puddle. Neither of the dogs have attacked anyone lately, and the cats have not puked on anything important all week…so there is that.

It is the little things that keep us going here.

Face Time with Dick

I actually wrote this in an email today:

“How can I get more face time with Dick?”

Go ahead….laugh until you cry. Just like I did.

Othello Synopsis

When asked what Othello was about, my daughter responded with the following:

It’s Shakespeare.

Everyone loves the people who are not in love with them.

Everyone dies.

The end.

Feeling Better

So I am at work today and feel ok. Not much to report. I talked to my cardiologist and will see him Tuesday. If I have any issues before then, I am supposed to go back to the hospital. Ummm, yeah.

I am fresh out of ideas for writing…as my mind keeps taking me back to how freaking scared I was Tuesday afternoon. When I was in the hospital this summer, I didn’t have the opportunity to think about what was happening to me – if that makes sense. It just happened and I “rolled” with it. Tuesday I had plenty of time to sit here and wonder if I was dying…and I have to say that I didn’t like having that sort of quality time with myself.

I am left wondering if I have lived the life I wanted, have I done the things I wanted, am I happy with my job? And dude, the answer is yes…and no. I need a different job, one where I feel like I am adding exponential value on a daily basis. I want to spend more time with my kids. I want more time with my family. Now I have to figure out how to accomplish that.

Chest Pain

I spent 5 ½ hours in the emergency room last night. It was a BLAST. Really. I recommend it for parties.

I started having some chest pain around 4-something, while sitting at my desk. I tried standing up, moving around, curling into a little ball in my big comfy chair…and finally started frantically dialing phone numbers. I tried my boss – not there. Tried my admin – not there. Tried security, and got put on hold. Called my husband and asked him to come get me. Luckily he had my car, so he had the security badge to enter the campus. Otherwise I would have had to get a hold of someone to register him.

I managed to make it down to the lobby, although I was quite certain I was having a heart attack. It felt like something was squeezing my chest. I honestly have not felt anything close to that degree of pain before. It came in waves of horrendous pain, and then tolerable pain…or perhaps I was able to cope for a minute or two and then couldn’t, and on and on. I can compare it to labor pain / contractions – but in my chest.

When my husband showed up I was crumpled on the floor of the entryway at work. Odd that nobody noticed me, but it saved me trying to explain anything to anyone. We went to the closest hospital – where they did an EKG, determined I was not at the immediate time having a heart attack, and sent us to the waiting room…to wait. I don’t know how long we were there. I sat there scrunched over alternating crying and swearing, and time had no real value at that point.

They eventually took me back to a room, started and IV, and gave me morphine…which did no good. They took some x-rays, blood, and vital signs, followed by giving me more drugs. I don’t know what the second one was, but it was fantastic. It actually took the pain away.

After all of the tests came back, they determined that they had no idea what was going on. Always nice to hear that. I was sent home with a handful of drugs and instructions to immediately contact my cardiologist – whom I have called, but have not heard back from. In the interim, I am in a slight bit of pain, but NOTHING compared to yesterday.

All I can think about is how terrified I was when this all started – how I though I was having a heart attack. I don’t know if I did, or if it was something else entirely. I would suspect that it was the vaso-spasm thing that affects my heart acting up, but then I have never had pain associated with it before. I know it wasn’t heartburn, as I had not eaten anything at all yesterday. Save me the eating lecture – I am not interested in hearing it…I was too busy to eat. As for stress, it wasn’t a stressful day, just busy. So I have to think it was the heart.

Hopefully I will get to see the heart doc and find out the story. This sort of stuff creeps me out.

8 Things about Me

So I wrote the 8 things about me that I thought most people wouldn't know...and I really liked doing it. And last night, as my husband was reading number 8, and I was cringing, waiting for his reaction, he began sharing a similar experience he had in his early 20's.

It is amazing how much we all may have in common. If we just cut loose and share a few things close to the heart, it is amazing how much closer we could be to one another.

BAD DATE 2

Have you ever been with a really bad kisser? How did you handle it? You go out on a date, get to the kiss, and want to slink away and die, right?

I worked at a mall in high school and for a year after, while waiting to go away to college. While working there, I met this HOT guy who worked at the tux shop and did some modeling for a few magazines. And when I say HOT, I mean Calvin Klein HOT. Dark hair, perfect eyebrows, darker skin, muscular chest, six pack stomach…he had it all as far as I could tell.

I flirted around with him for a while, and we finally went out on a date. We went to a party that a friend of his was throwing and we played “Bullshit”, drank some beer, and had a great time. And then? He kissed me. Actually a better description was that he tried to conduct a bronchoscopy with his tongue. HORRIBLE. He was slobbery and uncollected and just seemed so inexperienced. It was work to try to kiss this guy. Work I did not want to undertake.

We never went out again.

BAD DATE 1

My mother was an ice cream fanatic. They had just built a Chris Ice Cream near Notre Dame, which is one of those places where they served home made ice cream mixing in all kinds of yummy goodness. I wasn’t a huge ice cream fan, but really liked the amaretto, so I went along whenever she asked if I was interested.


My first time there I noticed one of the guys working behind the counter. He was big. Football player big. And unbelievably cute. And older than me. I was in high school at the time, and I could tell he was in college. I oogled over him, but didn’t say much.


After a few trips there (quite possibly within a week…knowing me and my lust for this guy) he finally asked my name. I told him, and for some reason he just didn’t hear it, get it, or care…and he started calling me Shamu. You know, like the whale. (Did I look like a whale? Was I FAT like a whale? What was up with that?) I think I died a little inside at that point, and cut all flirting to a minimum. Yet – every time we went in there, he would remember me and call me Shamu.


Flash forward a few years to IU. I was at drop/add trying to pick up Latin, Russian, and a math class that wouldn’t kill me dead within the first few weeks. When I had originally registered I had ended up with some advanced probability and numbers theory skull-numbing class that would have obliterated me. So – there I was in a gym full of frantic people trying to obtain a schedule I could manage.


I would say there were thousands of people in there, but I imagine that there were only about 300-400…all of which were trying to change their schedules. Some of the classes would let you put your name on a list and check back later to see if there was a spot. The math department was not interested in that kind of convenience, so I had to park it in front of the table and wait for someone to drop remedial math so I could pick it up.


I stood around waiting, feeling awkward and alone… I had been at this school all of a few days to a week and really didn’t know anybody. As I was pretending to be looking at something interesting in my notebook (blank page of paper if I recall correctly), I heard, shouted at FULL VOLUME across the huge gym, “SHAMU!!!!” I looked up and saw the ice cream boy in the front of the gym jumping up and down screaming whale names at me. It is pretty easy to imagine that I wanted to die. Here I was, trying to not feel like I didn’t fit in, and now everyone was going to freaking know me as Shamu. Awesome way to meet folks, no?


I ended up talking to the guy, writing down my real name for him (swearing to kick him in the balls if he ever called me Shamu again), and finished up the horrendous drop/add task while talking to him for hours.


We went out a few times – I went to a party at his frat house, we went out to dinner, and we studied together once. And then? He asked me to go to his house at Thanksgiving. Mind you it was only still September and the guy was planning the holidays. This totally freaked me out. A lot. I promptly distanced myself from him, ignoring his calls, and faked being too busy to date at all. I could not imagine myself with anyone forever, let alone a few months later… We had not slept together. We had not really even made out, and yet he was planning our lives. I still have no idea what this was about, but am glad I escaped.

EIGHT

I am at my last “thing” that I am supposed to tell you, that you most likely don’t already know about me, and I am struggling… Should I tell you about the strip club / lap dance? Should I talk about how my brother used to beat the crap out of me when we were kids? Should I discuss the parties that I had when my mom worked nights and I was in high school? Do I talk about how I am adopted, but don’t think about it much? Should I tell you about some of the really bad dates I had? See – the problem is that I have touched on some or all of these things here in the past, and many people who know me have heard it all before. We all have secrets, and although revealing those may be the point of this, I don’t really want to reveal anything too close to the heart. I am funny that way. I put it all out there, and then wonder what in the hell I was thinking.

Here goes "putting it all out there":

When I was 18, I thought I was pregnant.

My first grown-up relationship was interesting. It was intense, and serious, and full of drama. It didn’t last but a summer, however I cannot now imagine how we packed so much over-reacting into that period of time.

I had not experienced much in the way of relationships prior to that one…physical or emotional. And yet? I wanted to be treated as an adult, and felt completely capable of handling a serious relationship. I admit it. I was an idiot.

We had been dating a while, and the relationship had grown quite serious from my perspective. My period was late by a few weeks and I was horrified, scared, and felt all alone. I had been raised in a VERY VERY STRICT Christian home – full of the Fire and Brimstone speeches. I went to church almost as much as I went to school, and I pretty much believed everything they told me. I was not prepared for this serious kind of situation…at all. I would, after all, go straight to hell if I were in fact pregnant. The fact that I had engaged in pre-marital sex was also an issue…but pregnant? I may NEVER BE FORGIVEN!

I decided not to tell my boyfriend until I knew for sure, because I was an idiot that loved to torture myself. I had been thinking about what I would do – would I get an abortion (not likely), give the baby up for adoption (wow, wouldn’t that be hard?), or would I keep the baby, becoming a new mother at 18 (that would suck in so many ways for me). I tried to imagine telling my mother, which led to me realizing that I would be kicked out of the house in a heartbeat. Where would I live? What would I do? Did I love my boyfriend enough to get married and raise a baby together? I was only 18. I had not gone anywhere in the world. I had not been to college. I didn’t have a real job. My church would never support me. I was in turmoil.

I remember going to Planned Parenthood with one of my girlfriends and getting a pregnancy test. And although I was enormously relieved when they told me that it was negative, part of me was sad, or disappointed, or something I am still not sure I can describe. The idea of a life growing inside of me, even though it was the wrong time, wrong situation, and posed a horrible outcome, was still a life… and it was sad to find out it didn’t exist.

I obtained birth control immediately. And, as I recall, I decided to pass the torment I had endured on to my boyfriend. I asked him what he would do if I was pregnant…and let him fret for a bit until I told him that I was not. I wanted to see how he would handle it, or back him into a corner, or something – I am not even sure what. I do know that I was less than thrilled with his initial reaction, but then what would I expect really? I had been terrified at the prospect and had ample time to mull it over. He had no warning whatsoever. I could just slap that 18 year old idiot that I was. I wish I could go back and show my teenage self how that one thing caused a wedge in our relationship. And, although there were other factors, I would say that was the beginning of the end for us.