Swimming Lessons Suck

It’s the first day of July, and I am feeling the heat. We were supposed to get air conditioning about a month ago, but for some reason it’s taking a lot longer than that. My poor dogs just sit around looking lethargic and miserable. To help them out we put a sprinkler outside for them to play in. At least, Chloe plays in it. We have to physically carry Tucker to the sprinkler and hold him over it so he will get wet to cool off a little. It’s okay though, because we get sprayed in the process and the heat is alleviated for about 3 whole minutes until the water evaporates and we’re miserable again.

While I was torturing Tucker with sprinkler water today my neighbor was sitting in his backyard with one of those little blow up pools for his little girl, and she was splashing and having a grand old time. I think water is most fun when you’re little or if you’re a dog. It certainly seems to make both of them more hyper, anyway. I started thinking about my excursions in my little swimming pool during the summer as a child, and also about how embarrassingly long it took me to learn to swim. This is the part where I thank my mother for being more determined than me.

My mom can’t swim, and knowing intimately the fear that accompanies that inability she was unwavering in her decision that we all would know how to swim. My siblings picked it up with ease after one summer spent in lessons. I, however, hated the water and treated it like it was out to kill me or maim me or at very least make me very uncomfortable. I went through a summer of group lessons followed by three summers of private lessons before I would even put my head under the water. I hated the splashing (I still hate splashing), I hated getting water in my ears (still hate that too) and up my nose (that’s the worst!) and generally hated getting my head wet. I would even panic in the shower. You may think I haven’t improved much since then, but now I know I can wear earplugs and nose plugs and a swimming cap and I definitely like showers… I’m sure I look ridiculous when I swim now, but at least I can.

I remember a private lesson when I was little. I must have been fairly young because I remember being in the baby pool where it can’t be more than two feet at the deepest spot. It was always disturbingly warmer than the rest of the pool. I was fine with that until I figured out that urine was the likely culprit. Anyway, my swim teacher was trying to get me to put my head under the water (pee water!), so she would have me pick up rings from the bottom. I got the first rings with no issues – I solved the problem of putting my head under water by just locating the ring with my foot and tilting my head to the side to avoid submersion.

Then she put a ring over the drain at the deepest part of the pool.

While it’s not that deep, my little arms and legs were too short to use my head-tilt method of picking up the ring. I strained as hard as I could, but I couldn’t even touch it.





The swim teacher thought she had me now. “Go ahead, get the ring,” she encouraged, like I’m some sort of dog who will just do what she tells me to. No. I had a better idea.



And that was how it went for six weeks. I think finally they just shoved me under the water out of frustration on the last day, but by then it was too late to make any real progress. I would be back three more years until I finally willingly put my head under water. Then it was two more years of kick boards and trying to learn to float without paralyzing fear. Finally, my mom pulled all the stops and enrolled me in a private class my elementary art teacher taught at his house.

I did learn to swim that year and I overcame my fear of water, but I’m pretty sure I developed claustrophobia in its place.

It was toward the end of our lessons and our teacher put us all along the length of the pool with me at the deep end and we were to swim to the other side while our parents watched. I was proud of this placement because it meant he trusted me to swim across and not die. I was also conveniently placed across from the ladder, which was a landmark the two kids to my right did not fail to notice.

He blew his whistle or told us to go or something, and we all froggy dived into the pool and started our best freestyle toward the other side. And this is what happened.









The sun was useless, in case you were wondering. Also, it's a bad idea to panic and open your mouth under water.

I eventually resurfaced and clawed my way out from the side of the pool since the ladder was apparently so popular. I then sputtered for a while and then turned the full force of my glare at them.



I did show that I could swim that day, but as a result I have an irrational fear in any situation where I feel like I can’t breathe. I can always breathe just fine, mind you, but I’m usually positive I’m about to die, especially in crowded elevators. I was probably destined to inherit it from my father anyway, but this incident pretty much guaranteed that I would be claustrophobic.

Thanks a lot, meanie heads at the pool.

I Love Johnny Depp. Also, Oprah Might Kill Me.

This post is very important to me. It means I will have successfully posted every day for a week, which may not seem all that important for you all who have actual real things to do with your lives, but I don’t have a job and really don’t have anything better to do, so my blog has consumed my life. Also, however irrational this is, I feel that if I post seven days in a row then I can slack off and attempt to have a life outside the internet for a while. I don’t know how that connection was made, but there you have it.

Oh, and thank you two people who have commented as the comments are embarrassingly connected to my self worth. I know in my first post I said I didn't care and have no expectations, but that was all just a ruse because in reality Successful Blog = Happy Kristi, and Unsuccessful Blog = Lonely and Sad Kristi. Keep reading and commenting. End shameless self-promotion.

Anyway, I have noticed a trend in conversations that I think others will appreciate. I call it the “Me Factor.” The Me Factor is the thing that makes a conversation interesting. Not surprisingly, it concerns how much the conversation you are having is about you and how it applies to your life. I made a graph to illustrate:



Notice that the level of interest about a conversation increases proportionately with how much the conversation involves you. When people are talking about you, you make an extra effort to listen closely, you laugh more loudly, and you enjoy it more thoroughly.

You might think that embarrassing stories would be exempt from this rule, but you would be wrong. You see, when the story is embarrassing, you already know how embarrassing the full story is, but the teller may leave out a few details, so you still listen closely to find out exactly HOW embarrassed you need to be to leave the audience feeling as though they have not been told a story you don't actually find embarrassing. You wouldn't want to look like you were embarrassed about getting underwear for Christmas when you were eight if the story is actually about streaking across a little league game because there was a bee in your shower and you ran out screaming because you're allergic to bees but you got overly excited and ran outside but then you saw a bear and you ran away from that too and you were too busy running and wondering why there was a bear in the middle of a city to think about the fact that you were naked and then you're on a little league field and you don't know how you got there and everyone has stopped playing except for the pitcher whose aim is bad and he throws the ball and instead of going over home base he nails you in the head and knocks you out and then you wake up and everyone is staring at you but no one will touch you because you're some kind of NAKED FREAK at a little league game. You also have to be ready to defend yourself concerning your stupid actions. Seriously, what were you thinking?

Another factor that will raise the level of interest in a story is how much it reminds you of a story that is not only funnier and more awesome than the one currently being told, it also more importantly involves YOU, not the person currently talking. Allow me to illustrate:



As you can see, the story doesn’t have to involve you at all if you are anticipating the end of it so you can tell your cooler, more awesome and altogether better story at the end of it. Not only does it trump the Me Factor, it also makes the conversation slightly more interesting. I know, you’re probably thinking, “But Kristi, you’re only saying that because you just happened to draw it that way even though it was by accident.” And you know what? You'd be right. BUT, it’s also true, as my subconscious and obviously highly superior drawing skills were telling me even before I was conscious of the fact that it is true. The reason these conversations are more interesting to us is because we’re honing our story in our minds even while the other person is talking, and the anticipation of the end of the story makes us listen even harder for the tone that indicates the story is over. Besides, if there are other people listening to the story you may have to fight for talking space so you want to be sure to take measures to make sure they don't tell their stories first, such as by punching them or throwing them into the ocean.

There is one more thing that will throw off the Me Factor: the Famous Factor.



The famous factor indicates that a famous person is talking, and we all know that famous people live such thrilling and fascinating lives full of drugs and sex and rock and roll, so you can't help but be interested, even if the things that I listed are horribly cliche yet true. And if a famous person is telling you about yourself? Well, there’s really no way to top that.

Personally, I hope that a famous person never tells me about myself, because I know that during the whole thing I will be thinking, “This is the most interesting conversation I will ever have in my life! It’s thrilling but I know that when it’s over there will never be another conversation to match this one and that's kind of sad, unless I have another conversation about myself with someone even more famous like Johnny Depp.” And I would be so busy lamenting the fact that this is the high point in my conversation life and I will never have anything else to compete with it until I meet Johnny Depp and that he's really hot and I love him and I wish I was talking to him right now instead of this current famous person that I will miss the whole conversation completely. I would have to spend the rest of my life looking for people who are more famous that the other famous person and then try to get them to talk about me. It would be like an addiction. I’d probably end up living as a bum in Hollywood with some guy named Steve and we would live in a refrigerator box under a bridge and I would spend my days stopping random people on street corners to see if they’re famous and then gauging the level of their famousness by this handy chart I have made:



Okay, I know this chart may seem a little weird, and the font is embarrassingly small, so let me break it down so you don't develop eye strain and sue me because you don't have eye insurance. Not that it would do you any good, because I don't have any money or eye insurance either.

1. Me – I’m not famous. How do I know this? Because I don’t get stopped routinely and asked about my life as a famous person. I don't mind though because I hear the paparazzi really suck. I would probably go blind from all the flashes and then I would sue THEM because even though I'm famous for some reason I still don't have eye insurance.

2. Crack dealers – they aren’t famous per se, but they do know a lot of people, and people show up at their doors demanding stuff, so that’s kind of like being famous, I guess.

3. “Joey” from Full House – WTF ever happened to that guy? He was a fixture in my childhood (even though he was my least favorite character) and then he just disappeared. I bet it’s because he doesn’t have his mullet anymore. Kind of like when Jennifer Grey got a nose job and then no one wanted her to work anymore even though she was prettier and that's not fair, but I bet if Joey grew back his mullet people would be like "Hey, come work for us!" because mullets are awesome.

4. Bill Gates – slightly more famous that “Joey” but I never see him anywhere. People know he created Microsoft and he’s a bajillionaire, but does he ever DO anything? I mean, Steve Jobs did a conference thingy recently. I bet he’s hiding from the shame that was Vista. (Insert shameless plug about Apple being way better here.)

5. Tom Cruise – Wildly popular in the 90s, Tom Cruise’s appeal rating dropped dramatically after the Oprah Couch Jumping Incident of 05. He’s made a respectable attempt to come back in films, but personally I can only stand him when I can’t recognize him like in Tropical Thunder and I can pretend it's just some lumpy old dude who is really angry about being so lumpy.

6. Bill Clinton – Famous due to a sex scandal. I really feel sorry for the guy, because he did some great things while in office, but the main legacy he left could only be seen under a black light.

7. Jon Stewart – I love Jon Stewart. He reports on the sex scandals and other political embarrassments, which makes him famous because he makes fun of them, and everyone loves making fun of scandals. Also, he's hot.

8. Harry Potter – Not even a real person, but he still beats Tom Cruise. Harry Potter is a worldwide phenomenon, and I mostly just put him on here because he is awesome and I’m excited because I just saw the trailer for the new movie.

9. George W – More famous than Clinton because the world hates him. I haven’t really heard anything about him since Obama took office – he's probably hiding in shame and hoping he won’t be assassinated by some lunatic or Dick Cheney, who isn't really known for his awesome aiming skills.

11. Johnny Depp (I know I missed a number, but I’ll get there in a second) – So Johnny Depp probably isn’t the most famous person in the world, but I can’t imagine a conversation more thrilling than one with Johnny Depp telling me about myself, so he gets the top spot. Also, he’s hot. I guess if I ever had that conversation I would be forced to kill myself because life would be meaningless thereafter.

10. Oprah – Oprah was bumped from the top spot for reasons stated just above, but she probably is the most famous person ever. You will note that she also appears above the line in the chart to indicate superiority and she is appearing last on my list here as the anchor, even if it is out of order. This is primarily because I am reasonably sure she has internet spies and could probably have me killed with a slight gesture of her pinky or because she saw this on a bad day. She’s scarily powerful for a woman who started out with bad hair hosting a talk show... uh, I mean, you’re beautiful Oprah and I love you and you have good hair and I watch your show every day and please don’t have me killed because I’m too young to die and besides I haven't even talked to Johnny Depp yet...

I’m not sure I should end a post with a plea for Oprah to not kill me, but I’m kind of all talked out for the day. Besides, in my real life I really suck at telling stories and often leave the audience with an “Oh…..” kind of feeling, and I rather think I’ve done that here. See? A glimpse into Kristi as a real living person outside the internet. You’re welcome.

A Thousand Ways to DIE in Antarctica... Here are Five

Doug is upset with me. His brother called today to inform us that he is going to Antarctica. Doug immediately gasped, said, “I’m so jealous!” and gave me the dirtiest look he could manage. I shrank into the couch and pretended to be very interested in my toenails.

Why am I getting dirty looks, you ask? Well, Doug has wanted to go to Antarctica for as long as I have known him. However, sometimes being married crushes lifelong dreams - I refuse to allow him to go. He reminds me of it every now and again in a sulky voice, especially when he finds out one of his relatives is getting to go.

There is a very logical reason for my refusal. First of all, an expedition is a six-month engagement, and I don’t like long absences from my husband. He has suggested the remedy to this by telling me I could go with him, which is preposterous. This is how I envision myself in Antarctica:



I don’t know why he wants to go to such a frigid wasteland. I mean, the absence could be prolonged FOREVER because of all the ways one could perish. So far I have counted 178 ways to die in Antarctica, but I will choose my top five to post here.



1) Getting eaten by rabid polar bears.



Yes, I know there are no polar bears in Antarctica… YET. Hey, the polar ice caps are melting – they’ve gotta go somewhere. The way I figure it, they will either swim there or, the more likely scenario, environmentalists will organize a mission to take them there by boat. They will take sled dogs to haul the bears once they have been humanely tranquilized, but due to the unforeseen circumstance of one of the dogs being a former rescue from a laboratory wherein they researched the effects of an angry virus on monkeys, that dog will have been infected with a serious type of rabies and will go around biting the polar bears and they will put the dog down but feel too bad about the bears because they were trying to save them and shooting them would defeat the purpose so they just ship them as planned and drop them off on Antarctica to fend for themselves. Hey, there are lots of penguins and seals to eat, right? They’ll be fine.



2) Getting eaten by rabid penguins.



They got rabies from the polar bears. It’s the bad kind that birds can also get and it gives them sharp teeth and makes them ravenous for meat. HUMAN meat.



3) Freezing to death because you forgot one of the buttons on your jacket.



Wind is a sneaky bastard.



4) Dying in the ocean because your ship hits an iceberg.



Bummer, dude. Bet you wish you had stayed home with your wife.



5) Getting mistaken for Jonah by the Whale.



It’s Christmas at home. What did you get your family? What’s that? You mean you can’t get them anything BECAUSE YOU FREAKING DIED?! Guess you should have just stayed home, huh?

Nyquil and Orange Juice: A Love Story

Doug and I dated for two years before getting married. I was one of those brides who wanted everything perfect, but I like to think I stopped just short of being a bridezilla, which is apparently what you turn into when you yell at people and tell them to be better at life for your wedding.

Here is a picture I drew of Bridezilla:



Don’t mess with her. She’s for serious.

Anyway, as the week of our nuptials approached, I was scrambling to get everything done in time. I had just graduated college a few weeks earlier, and I had wasted the time I could have been using to prepare by doing stupid stuff like studying for final exams and making sure I had enough credits to graduate. Like I don’t have enough to worry about. Luckily, Doug’s sister decided to stay with us for a week and save me.

Everything was going smoothly until the night of the bachelorette party. No, it was not a night of misfit debauchery. Although I will give you a taste of what ensued at Doug’s bachelor party as per the following conversation we had as Doug was crawling into bed at 4:00 AM:

Me: Oh, you’re home. Did you have a good time?

Doug: Uh, yeah, I guess.

Me: You smell like beer.

Doug: Yeah, I know. By the way, your cell phone is dead.

(I had sent my cell phone with him just in case he needed to call anyone.)

Me: Oh, that’s okay, the battery was low so I’m not surprised.

Doug: No, I mean the strippers poured beer down my pants and your cell phone is dead.

Me: ……OH.

My bachelorette party was considerably tamer. I mean, I had invited my mom and Doug’s mom – we weren’t going to any strip clubs. Let’s face it, that would have just been awkward for everybody. We had a lovely evening wherein we painted pottery and then had dinner at Olive Garden. However, while I was opening my gifts full of lingerie and various naughty items, I noticed that I had “that feeling” in the back of my throat. You know, the one that says “You’re going to get sick and there’s nothing you can do about it!!” It seemed my body was exacting its revenge for the stress-filled weeks leading up to this moment and the sure to be stress-filled days ahead.



I don’t know why the stupid thing was so happy. It was going to suffer the most.

The next day, in between decorating the church and getting ready for the rehearsal dinner, I guzzled orange juice like Cookie Monster would if he was the Orange Monster instead of Cookie Monster… they should make an Orange Monster. I was determined to force enough vitamin C into my system to chase away any chance of being sick on my wedding day. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to be working. At one point I remember stringing Christmas lights and tulle along the aisle at the church and deciding the benches looked like a good place to take a nap.



My family members weren’t super happy about me shirking my responsibilities, but what could they do? I was the bride and I was sick.

Later that evening we had the rehearsal dinner catered in my parents’ huge back yard. Our entire wedding party was there plus all of Doug’s relatives who had flown in from various states to be there. The night was fairly relaxing, but I was too nervous to eat much. My sister, who is a physician’s assistant, recommended I take Nyquil to get a restful night’s sleep. I thought that sounded like a brilliant plan.

Cut to 4:00 AM the day of my wedding.





Apparently, the orange juice had made my stomach so acidic that the little food I had eaten the night before did not act as enough of a buffer for the Nyquil. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was on what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life praying to the porcelain god. Are you FREAKING KIDDING ME?!

Oh, and I couldn’t stop.



I quickly showered and drove the three blocks to my parents’ house to ask mom for help. I’m sure I looked like death walking only by sheer willpower motivated by the intention to get married.





This is what my eyelids look like from the back after I’ve looked at the sun:



I was up and going by 8:00. My hair was done by 9:30, I was make-upped and dressed by 10:45, and the shot had kicked in.

Cut to 11:30 on the day of my wedding. I am in my 18 pound dress getting my 92nd picture taken, I haven’t eaten since the meager amount of food I had the night before, and I’m ravenous.



Luckily, it all worked out in the end. Doug and I got hitched without a hitch (see what I did there?) and by 9:00 that evening I was exhausted. Being the lame people that we are, we left our own reception early (at which I could not even eat my own cake because my stomach told me “Don’t you dare put that in your mouth! I will humiliate you in front of all these people! Don’t you even think I won’t!”). We sleepily drove to our bed and breakfast that we enjoyed the requisite minimal amount and passed out.

And despite all that orange juice, I still woke up sick.

How a Doll Almost Ruined my Fourth Birthday

The pictures I draw generally have me wearing a dress, regardless of my age. Except for the ones of me going to the gym, that is, but that’s just logical. I mean, who wears a dress to the gym? Anyway, I have to apologize because that’s not actually factual; it’s just easier to draw dresses than taking the time to draw pants. (The first picture will demonstrate how my already limited drawing “skills” are taxed when attempting to draw a shirt and pants. I assure you, my brother was not that lumpy.) Why am I pointing out this clothing discrepancy? Because this story has to do with my fourth birthday, and as a child, I abhorred anything resembling girl stuff. Dresses were to be worn by other girls, not me. (Also, since dresses are still easier to draw than pants and I am lazy, I will still be using them, but for the purposes of illustrating my hatred to all things girl-related I will make them blue.)

The reason for my aversion to girliness has a very simple source: my big brother. My siblings are both quite a bit older than me. My sister is ten years older and my brother is seven. While my sister was never a playmate of mine, having more important older-sister things to focus her attention on like sports and boys, there was a brief time in my childhood where my brother was my best friend. I don’t think he was always thrilled about that, but I was small and our mom probably made him play with me.



This arrangement changed somewhere around the time puberty took him into its clutches and made him too cool for his little sister, at which point he became my enemy. However, this didn’t occur for a few years, so he still had a lot of time confuse me about gender roles first. When I was little I loved matchbox cars and GI Joes and Legos. I also liked My Little Ponies and stuffed animals, but that was about as far as I ventured into the strange land of females. In the meantime I ran around pretending to be Batman and shooting bad guys.



After ample time of cementing that girlie things were to be avoided, my fourth birthday came around. Oh, I should also mention three other important details: 1) my birthday is the day before my grandmother’s birthday; 2) my grandmother had 7 children and therefore has a huge family; and 3) I was a tragically shy child.

We were attending a celebration of my grandmother’s birthday at my aunt and uncle’s house and sometimes my family members would also bring me cards and presents because it was my birthday too and I was little and when you’re little presents are about the most exciting thing in the world next to candy and scenarios involving dirt and potentially scraped knees.



One of my cousins was thoughtful enough to bring me a present. As children are wont to do, I plopped down in the middle of the floor with my dad, forgetting for a moment my crippling shyness, and proceeded to tear open the wrapping paper.

I glimpsed what was under the paper.

I looked at my dad.

I looked back at the box.

This was not at all what I was expecting.

Sometimes I think that seeing a present and knowing it’s for you is almost better than actually opening the present. The anticipation is so exciting you can hardly contain yourself. It’s like being a kid at Grandma’s house during Christmas and looking at the heap of presents under the Christmas tree and just knowing that some of them are for you and also knowing that you aren’t allowed to open them until after dinner and then it’s after dinner but the adults have to clean up the mess and you’re just drooling all over yourself in excitement and poking at the presents but then someone tells you to quit poking at the presents and sit down and wait quietly but you’re so excited that you bounce in the chair and ask if they’re almost done every 42 seconds and then finally, FINALLY, everyone is sitting down and presents are being passed out and you know one of them is coming your way but you have to watch everyone else open their presents one at a time while pretending to pay attention and trying not to explode into a big puddle of goo from the anticipation and then it’s finally your turn and one of them is passed to you and everyone is watching to see your awesome new stuff and you’re so excited you just want to poop and then you tear open the wrapping paper in a flurry of Santa-shaped confetti and then rip open the box with fingernails and teeth and pull it out and it’s… it’s… IT’S…..

Underwear.

Really, Grandma? Really? I’m 8 and you bought me underwear to open in front of all my relatives? This happened every Christmas and I would always just put it back in the wrapping paper and hide it, hoping no one noticed my shame in getting underwear. I probably would have jumped for joy about getting underwear instead of a doll though.

So there I am, four years old, and anticipating the glory that is my present with all of my relatives watching including my cousin that just knows I’m going to love it, and I look inside and see that it’s a doll.



A doll. I’ve spent my entire life, all four long years of it, trying to hide the fact that I am female. And there it is, smiling at me through the plastic protection, pointing to the fact that I am definitely a girl, and what do girls like to play with? Dolls.

I flipped the box over it and took excessive care to ever so slowly peel back one tiny strip of paper to buy myself time. I lean over to my dad, who I know is there to protect me in my time of need, and I am panicking because I don’t want a doll, I just want GI Joes like they gave me earlier that day because they understand me. With tears in my eyes because I’m devastated that this present is such a disappointment, I whisper with all my powers of shy, four-year-old discretion, “I don’t like it.” And what does dad say to his little girl?



(There is actually a video of this incident, and in it he’s being nice and encouraging, but this is what it looked like to me in my four-year-old world. Also, he doesn’t actually have hair made of fire, but how cool would that be? Hi Dad, I love you!)

Now I know I have to keep the doll. I have to like it. There’s no other option. I will be branded a girlie girl and my friends (who are all boys) will shun me for the pink-dress-wearing, doll-loving, baby-kissing female I am and I won't ever be allowed to wear the batman cape again. It’s all just too much.



I bury my head in my hands and start to cry.

And all the while my relatives are standing around waiting to see what’s in the box, and then they’re confused because I’m crying even though there is a half-unwrapped present in my lap and I should be finishing the unwrapping process because kids love presents. That’s when they find out I don’t like dolls and my poor thoughtful cousin feels awful for bringing such shame upon me. They all stand around awkwardly as I cry about my doll.

Later my mom tells me about etiquette. She says that we just say “Thank you for the present” and return it later for something more awesome.

Super Power

I’m doing laundry today. Doug asked me to do it, even though he knows I am really bad at things like getting the laundry out of the dryer within a reasonable amount of time. It's really not my fault though. You see, I have a super power.

Some people wouldn’t consider it a super power as much as a hindrance of responsibility, but I am more optimistic than those people. You see, long ago, I was in an accident that disabled my ability to hear buzzers. Well, I wasn’t so much IN an accident as I HAD an accident. But that just sounds like I peed myself or something, which isn’t true. Well, I mean, of course I did when I was really little, but… this is going nowhere.

Let’s start at the beginning. I have always been nocturnal. Always. I tortured my poor mother as a baby because I wouldn’t sleep at night. I don’t remember it, but she likes to remind me about it on a semi-annual basis, so I’m sure it was awful.



It was especially difficult for her because when she would finally get me to sleep there would be something good on TV (because we all know they don’t play the really good shows until 1:00 AM). Logically, she would decide to stay up and watch that, and then get up early anyway. Apparently this inability to control her television impulses was also my fault. Bad baby!!

I stopped taking naps when at an unreasonably early age because Mom was desperate to get a modicum of sleep when normal people are supposed to be sleeping. While naps are paramount in my life now, at the time I was sort of fine with giving them up. After all, children love being awake to see what’s going on. This was especially true in my case because my whole family was made up of adults talking about adult things, so I had to be sneaky to find out what was going on – I didn’t have time for naps.



Being nocturnal, morning is naturally my nemesis. This has unfortunate consequences in my adult life because employers generally expect you to be at work early. However, in my childhood my morning-avoidance had bad consequences for my mother because she had to intersperse her morning routine with multiple trips to my bedroom with increasingly more desperate attempts to get me out of bed. I’m actually kind of shocked she never poured water on my head, though I’m sure she thought about it.

After her eighth trip to my bedroom with escalating threats, I would finally drag myself out into the world of normal people who like daylight. However, my brain was still half asleep, so I would basically just stand there staring at my reflection in the mirror wondering what I was supposed to be doing. This did nothing for my mother’s mood when she would find me in a drool-filled stupor.



She had the fairly reasonable expectation that I would be ready to get out the door so she could get to work on time. I don’t really ever remember that happening. Usually she was racing the clock to work, which really is unfair because time doesn’t have any obstacles like stoplights and bad traffic and children who drool on themselves, so time would almost always win. I really should send her a Thank You/I’m Sorry card at some point for putting up with me. I love you Mom!



(I do apologize for the above picture. It seems I’ve forgotten almost everything I learned about drawing in perspective in the fifth grade. You get the point though.)

Fast forward to high school, and I was responsible for getting my own self up and to school. I was a grown up with a car and an alarm clock. Unfortunately, I still had an amazing capacity to ignore people/things who were trying to get me out of bed before I was good and ready. Ignoring my mom just made her mad, but alarm clocks are really sort of fine with it. I mean, the makers of alarm clocks actually installed an “Ignore Button” in anticipation of this. They call it a snooze, but really, it’s the same thing. I was a pro at finding the button. I didn’t even have to look. If there was an ignoring button Olympics, I would win with no contest. I could do it in my sleep. Actually, I kind of did.

Eventually, this skill of mine began to hinder me, especially when I had to be to school at 7:00 for early morning jazz band. It was a miracle if I got there on time. Usually they were already practicing when I would stumble in with crust still in my eyes. That’s when I got the bright idea to put the alarm clock at the foot of my bed so it would force me to wake up enough to at least sit up and reach for the alarm clock to hit the snooze button. It was a brilliant idea. It would surely snap me out of my pre-dawn stupor and make me jump right out of bed into the world like the adult I had become.

Unfortunately, my laziness and love for sleep did not enter into these calculations.

I began to simply ignore the beeping. Oh, sure, at first it worked like a charm. The buzzing that every person on earth is predisposed to hate would start right on time and I would sit bolt upright and hit that snooze with ferocity.



How dare it wake me from the foot of the bed where it cannot easily be reached? And it was always such a chipper and enthusiastic buzz. Alarm clocks are so self-righteous in their buzzing, as though it’s the highlight of its day. It did make me get up sooner though – I would only sit up so many times before I decided, “Well, I’m already halfway there.” Until one fateful day (this is the accident day… remember that from the beginning?) when I was simply too tired to be bothered to exert the energy to take care of the beeping. Instead, I went back to sleep. Thus began my long struggle.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it quickly spiraled out of control. I wouldn’t hear my alarm clock at all anymore; my brain simply refused to register the noise. I would have to set it an hour and a half before I actually wanted to get up because it would take my brain that long to compute that something was disturbing the silence. Luckily for me, I still had my mom as a backup. Not that she was very thrilled about going back to the old routine. (Sorry, Mom.)

Eventually I began hearing the alarm again, but it took a long time. My roommate in college used to throw pillows at me so I would shut it off. I mostly credit Doug with helping me regain my buzz-hearing-ability because he pokes me after the first beep. He works against the systematic desensitization of my adolescence to allow me to hear the buzzing like a normal person. But I do think I’ve had some loss of sensation concerning beeping in the rest of the world.

And that is why it’s not my fault when I don’t hear the dryer buzzing.

The Gym Shame/Guilt Cycle

Doug and I joined a gym last year. We were quite pleased with ourselves and I immediately had visions of becoming all muscular, but not the kind of gross muscular that you see in ladies’ muscle magazines that make you want to tear out your eyes and find that thing they used in Men in Black so you can erase your memory. I’m talking like toned and strong so that next time we move I can say, “I am strong and therefore can lift any box with no peril to myself!” Also, then my mom could stop calling me a weenie.

Alas, it was not meant to be.

We started off strong (no pun intended) and went a few times a week. They even offered “medals” online for things like bringing a friend and going 100 times in 6 months, and probably even for shamelessly promoting them at little league games and PTA meetings. (I never did that.) You could then exchange the medals for free stuff. Doug was all about that, and I was too until I realized going 100 times in 6 months was like four times a week and that is a lot of gym.

I must interject here to tell you something quite important about myself that will give you some perspective: I am lazy. I have been lazy my whole life. I hate cleaning, physical exertion, responsibility, and really just getting off the couch. Comfort is paramount in my life. I don’t really know why I thought joining a gym would enable me to overcome this lifelong struggle with procrastination and rebelling against anything resembling work.

Anyway, I quickly noticed a pattern developing. About the gym, I mean - I've been aware of my laziness for quite some time. Doug has been somewhat more resistant to this pattern, but it has consumed me utterly.

Phase I: Honeymoon

In the Honeymoon phase, I was excited and all for going to the gym. I tried out all the machines, had some sessions with a Personal Trainer, and generally set about getting in shape. I was amazing.







Phase II: Disenchantment

In the second phase the newness has worn off. Oh, I would still go about once a week, but I would find myself making excuses the rest of the time. For example:

“I can’t go – I have too much studying to do.” (Which I would then blow off for something more exciting.)

“It’s too early. I want to sleep in.”

“But I’m right in the middle of this anime marathon! I’ve only been watching for 18 hours – I can’t stop now!”

And failing all else, my standby: “I don’t wanna.”



Phase III: Fallout and Shame

This is the period where both of us would decide we were too busy to be bothered with things like physical health and toned-ness. Usually it would involve studying, working, visiting relatives, or just general burnout from life as a student. We would spend our free time contemplating the wonder that is our television and the computer that Doug converted to a DVR. Our house would be filled with pizza boxes, ice cream containers, and defeat. The shame would begin to consume us.



Phase IV: Rejuvenation

After about a month’s worth of slovenly behavior, the shame would drive us back to the gym. Actually, Doug would drive us there, but you know what I mean. My wise husband would decide to start slowly back into the gym routine by doing some minor stretching and cardio on our first day back from our hiatus. I, however, am awesome and so would decide to do everything I could with heavier weights and greater intensity.



This inevitably would end with Doug supporting me to the car followed by a three-hour nap and lots and lots of Tylenol. The next day I would just lay groaning from the punishment I had inflicted on my poor unsuspecting muscles.


Phase V: Recuperation

Since my body couldn’t possibly take any more beating, I obviously would need at least a week to recover. Usually I would be disenchanted once again so it would be more like two weeks full of ice cream and excuses before the next phase would set in.



Phase VI: Guilt

This is where I live, folks: in an endless cycle of guilt with a dose of shame thrown in for good measure. It keeps me going to the gym about once a week (twice if I feel really guilty). Doug reminds me that it’s good for me and we’re paying for the membership (conscience is one of his many roles). So I drag my ass to the gym out of guilt in the hope of appeasing my husband-conscience and, to some degree, my own as well. But there is no excitement anymore – just a renewed hatred and aversion to all things resembling work. And cardio is definitely work.



I would like to add a note here that my drawings were inspired by the blog Hyperbole and a Half. Check it out for lots of entertainment. However, the drawings appearing in this blog are all lovingly created by yours truly. There will be more to come.