mydarlingcurse.com

I told her the birth story, from my point of view - what we did and what I thought and how she was born, etc. Then Daddy told her the birth story from his point of view - I remember him saying that after she was born and they brought her to me, he said how beautiful we were, the two of us. And how everyone was instantly in love with her.

I can’t believe that she’s four years old. She’s so dazzling and smart and quirky. I constantly remind myself to be grateful in her presence, not to miss a moment, and remember to cherish everything. Of course I know I can’t. But I don’t want anything to slip by unnoticed. She’s just so charming that I want her with me always. Again, I know it’s unrealistic, but that’s how much she’s loved and appreciated.

I am going to work on spending this next year with her building her confidence and I’m going to try not to feel bad when wonderful things happen around her, that my Mom is missing out. I need to let go of that. I need to share those moments with those present and believe that they happened because of her own grace and soul. But I know where that grace comes from - my Mom. But I can’t be sad about her missing things anymore. She’s not missing anything, and I know that. I just have to be more aware of knowing that.

I love you my darling girl, more than you’ll ever know. Happy Birthday my sweet sweet girl.

This Octomom bullshit really gets to me. And I feel that while everyone has an opinion about this, I’ve actually taken fertility drugs, so I know more than the average person about this. But I don’t want to waste my time, breath, and efforts on this woman.
But now that she’s inked this deal for a reality show about her kids, well….that’s just too much for me.

Why the world is still paying attention to this woman is beyond me. She’s a mercenary and thank CHRIST that someone has gotten involved on behalf of her children. Let’s set aside for a moment that women, human women with half a brain in their heads, are not supposed to have a litter of babies. Not all at once anyway. Let’s set aside the fact that her doctor should be publicly stoned for his questionable practices, both before Octomom and after. Let’s set aside that her own mother thinks she’s a bad mom and shouldn’t be taking care of the 14 kids she now has. Let’s not look at the two million couples waiting to adopt a baby. Let’s just look at this poor excuse of a woman and help her out.

Shame on you, reality TV assholes. Shame on you.

I am not going to waste another thought or type another word about this women.

Currently, if you don’t have frozen embryos you cannot comment on the state of anyone else’s frozen embryos.

I was at a party over the weekend and connected with a woman who has frozen embryos from their last IVF cycle. We have some too. And it was kind of cool to meet someone who is asking themselves the same series of questions as we do when the bill comes every six months. So the above statement is not directed at her.

But then I think back to how assaulted I felt when the freakshow across the street asked me if I had embryos left over from IVF and that if I did, I was OBLIGATED by GOD to have more babies. And that just pissed me off.

So, if it comes up, take Mama MoJo’s advice listed above.

Whenever the weather dips below seventy degrees I instantly start thinking of the Ex-English Teacher. It’s such a bad habit, but so completely out of my control. It is a horrible seasonal thing, but wonderful too. I KNOW it’s not even remotely autumn but this recent cold snap here in Minneapolis is delightful. I just feel the need to be with him and talk to him. Not that I have anything interesting to share, but just to be with him, almost to re-calibrate in some way.

When I was going through my Deadwood phase, there was a scene that wasn’t that significant, but it explained a lot about two characters. One of the characters, Trixie, was a whore and her pimp, the main character of the series, Al. Trixie eventually gets out of “the business” but whenever anything bad happens, or a major change shakes up her life, she’s right back in Al’s office consulting with him. She tries to explain it to her new boyfriend, who is fully aware of her past employment/employer. She has no explanation other than, that’s just what whores do, they go back to their pimp since it’s the closest thing to a father or home they know.

Not that the Ex-English is a pimp, HA! Far from it. And while I’ve been called a “whore”, I’ve never actually been a whore. But this need to return to him, to be with him, I can’t explain. It’s as sick and wrong as Trixie makes it sound, but I can’t help myself.

Here is a more flowery version, from Shakespear’s Much Ado About Nothing. Not sure of the act and scene….

Benedick: Suffer love. a good epithet, I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

The average american worker puts in about nine hours a day. 45-50 hours a week, roughly. Probably more. The average american worker gets paid time off and sick days.

Not me.

My sick days are like any other day. No concern, no sympathy, no time off.

Where the fuck is my HR rep. I have a serious bone to pick.

Stay at home mom is a shitty shitty job. Your projects are never completed and your task list is immense.

Yeah, sure, you’re molding the bright minds of our future, but at what cost? Mental and physical health that’s the cost. My fucking mental and physical health.

No time off though, never.

And here I am bitching. Two beautiful children, healthy, normal, smart and funny. Both in daycare two days a week. I should be cutting my right arm off in sacrifice I’m so lucky. If only I had a day off to do it.

I am a sucker for vampire novels (pardon the pun). I love them, pure and simple. Some are cliché and try too hard, e.g. Mary Janice Davidson’s “Undead” series. But some, like John Ajvide Lindqvist’s Let The Right One In, are so subtle and so horrifying that it makes me shiver with fear and delight. Lindqvist has given us a Robert Altman-esque vampire tale that takes place in a Stockholm ghetto. Oskar gets beat up by bullies and he lives next door to Eli. Eli lives with Hakan, who is a pedophile. Also in the building complex is a gang of glue sniffing teenagers, one of whose Mom is dating the cop who investigates the murders surrounding the story. Also, there is a sprinkling of local, middle-age alcoholics. One of whom Eli kills and whose body is found by kids in Oskar’s class on a field trip. Don’t worry; I haven’t given it all away.

As far as 12-year old vampires go, Anne Rice set the standard with Claudia in Interview with a Vampire. The problem with making so young a creature is that they cannot possibly survive on their own. Interestingly, Lindqvist puts the care of his 12-year old vampire in the trembling, nervous hands of a pedophile. Hakan provides the appearance of a “father figure.” He also kills and drains the blood of his victims for Eli. Eli does not want to “infect” anyone else, so she avoids biting people. Thus Hakan satisfies his hunger for young men, and then brings buckets of blood home to Eli.

But this story really isn’t about Eli. The main story is about Oskar, a wisp of a kid who gets beat up almost every day. Oskar still wets himself, he doesn’t run for the bullies that torment him, he cowers before them because it’s easier. The bullies make him squeal like a pig and whip him with tree branches. Oskar goes home and clips articles from newspapers about local murders, pastes them into a scrapbook and fantasizes about revenge. He shoplifts and takes a kitchen knife to a neighborhood tree, playing out his fantasy of killing the bullies. The bully goes home and clings to a stamp collection – the only thing left behind from his long gone father. So which is more troubling, a kid openly lashing out because his father left, or the shy budding sociopath?

Oskar meets Eli at the ghost of a playground in their apartment complex. She is underdressed, wane and smells funny. Eli tells Oskar that they cannot be friends; she is not what she seems. Thus their forbidden love story begins. Oskar gives her a Rubik’s cube and when he figures out that she lives right next-door, he copies out Morse code so they can talk through the common wall they share. Ahhh…awkward adolescent love, with a vampire.

It’s obvious that Eli has forgotten to be young and her relationship with Oskar puts a strain on her life at home with Hakan. Hakan becomes jealous that Eli’s affections are now elsewhere and he begins to put a price on his “dirty work” for her. The line blurs between what Hakan does for her and the pleasure he gets for himself. Of course it all goes horribly wrong. On the brink of being captured Hakan pours acid on his face so they won’t be able to trace him back to Eli. Surprisingly enough Hakan lives through his disfigurement, Eli finds him and takes mercy on him. Before she can drain him of all his blood and kill him with her bare hands so he doesn’t become infected, she is interrupted and must flee. It is then that the true monster of Lindqvist’s tale comes to life. And I was terrified.

Some would say that the side stories in the novel, the glue-sniffing teenagers, the cop, the Mom, the weird old guy with the cats, the other generic local alcoholics distract for the true story of Oskar and Eli. But it’s the branches of the tree that produce the fruit, not the trunk. Oskar and Eli’s fate was written long before the novel began. You know what’s going to happen to them. But the others in the book, what of their fate? It all matters. It’s all connected. Don’t skim past it. Lindqvist doesn’t waste characters. Even the chapter written from the perspective of a squirrel has value. There is more to this book that just a love story. Thankfully, Lindqvist doesn’t bog his story down with the slow seduction of biting someone on the neck. Instead he horrifies you with the human condition; the real monsters that possibly live just a few feet away.

Let me begin by admitting that I did not intend to read Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl by Stacey O’Brien. I’d never heard of it. It didn’t come recommended; I hadn’t even seen a review or anything. It was a total impulse buy. Allow me to also admit that I have a thing for owls, even though they are not what they seem. I walked past Ms. O’Brien’s book and I made that sound that people make when something completely adorable catches them by surprise. The cover is a picture of Wesley as an owlet, cute, white, fuzzy, with a little heart outlining his face. I couldn’t get it home and read it fast enough.

I can’t say that I am particularly interested in reading someone’s tale about their dog or cat, my apologies to Marley and Mittens. But reading about someone who raised an owl, well, that’s just cool. Ms. O’Brien gives us a sweet and funny tale of life with an unusual pet indeed. As an assistant in the owl labs at Caltech, O’Brien adopted Wesley when he was four days old. Born with nerve damage to one of his wings, Wesley needed a human home or he would perish. So O’Brien took him home, on Valentine’s Day. But she doesn’t view Wesley as just a pet. Wesley – a barn owl – is a majestic soul, one to be cherished and understood. O’Brien feels as if she has been given a wondrous gift of great importance, a gift to teach and heal her, a gift to complete her.

O’Brien tells her story with spunky little tales of life with Wesley, but also peppers the book with an interesting look inside Caltech. She has enough sparkling facts about owls to make it a very balanced read. She pulls at your heart – Wesley finds his cuddle spot on Stacey’s arm and that’s “his” spot for the next 19 years. She makes you laugh – turns out Wesley is a water bird and makes a huge ruckus in the bathroom until she fills the tub, then he pounces around making little happy noises. She also makes you wince – Wesley needs a constant and steady diet of mice and Ms. O’Brien becomes very deft at “preparing” mice for Wesley to eat. It’s fun and genuine and sometimes that’s all one needs in a book.

The one bad thing about reading animal memoirs is that…well…the author lived to tell the tale while their loving subject has passed on. The good thing about this is that we too grieve and heal our own lost animal friends. I read Wesley the Owl about six weeks after my dog died. O’Brien is so poised at finding the good in all situations that my own grief was eased simply by reading her words. O’Brien wrote all of things I was feeling, all of the questions I had, and some of the guilt I felt. It was like a friend reaching out and comforting me. I feel like I owe her one.

O’Brien extends so much of herself throughout this book that it’s hard not to love her, and of course Wesley. She loses boyfriends and apartments due to Wesley, but never once does she think about giving him up. She deals with tragedies external and personal. She takes every experience as a new and lovely thing, even if it means that her soul mate, her one true love, is an owl; and this too she will eventually lose.