New Gig, New Look, Renewed Blogging

I seriously thought about giving it up. 

2013 was a rough year, with my grandfather passing, my being ill, moving to our new house, and all the rest of that daily life which crops up. Most evenings, all I wanted to do was eat, collapse on the couch, and watch mindless television until I fell asleep. And yet…

Something was missing. That something was writing. I wasn’t in the head space to actually accomplish regular writing, but damn if I didn’t miss it.

So, for the last few weeks, I’ve pondered and considered and waffled and finally, picked myself up and decided to begin again. This, in the midst of others shutting down and stopping; Sprocket Ink, Schmutzie, and others you may or may not have heard about.

I’ll leave others to meander around the idea of whether blogging is dying. I’m still narcissistic enough to continue. Plus, there’s so much I still want to document. We have K in the house for about 18 more months, and I’m certain shenanigans will ensue as we visit schools and he fills out college applications. Plus, writing about it for you is much healthier than finding a corner and curling up in the fetal position to ride it out, I’m sure.

To that end, I thought it was time for a new, simple, clean look. Voila! I now have one. And while I cut down on many of my writing obligations, I also picked up a new one: Lefty Pop. A brand new site, in its first week, and my first post pops up today.  You should totally go and check them out. I even have a cute new button over on the right.

Later on, I will write more about how my endocrine system tried to kill me, and how I’ve given it a shockabuku. I will write about J’s nefarious plan to make me cook all the things. I’ll update you on Ant, aka, Ferdinand the Bull, and the second season of basketball. I’ll, of course, do some whining about winter weather. There’s much to talk about, but baby steps, baby steps.

I hope you’ll stick around for the ride.

The ACT

There’s something we’ve been avoiding at all costs in this house. And by ‘we’, I mean me. And by avoiding, I mean every time my older child brings up the subject, I sigh, and shake my head, and leave the room as quickly as physically possible.

It’s time for my older son, who is a junior in high school, to take the ACT for the first time. Of course, he needs parental assistance to register for the ACT. This assistance is problematic, however, because it requires me to accept the fact that in roughly 20 months, I will be escorting my child to his college of choice in order for him to begin his freshman year.

Oh? You’ve never felt the urge to hide behind the couch in an effort to avoid your teenage son and his repeated requests to sign up for a standardized test? I feel sorry for you…

Note from J: He would like to remind all involved at this time that we are very fortunate in the fact we convinced K to complete his senior year, even though he will have enough high school credits to graduate on the college prep track at the end of this year.

The other night, I could no longer refuse him. It was the deadline for him to register for the December sitting of the ACT. The time was now; I had procrastinated all I could, so he and I sat down in front of the computer to fill out the registration and questionnaires together.

And by together, I mean he did all of it while I sat there and sighed and made pitiful-looking faces in his general direction. Well, until the point where I began to question all of my parenting choices and wonder at the level of damaging weirdness I appear to have passed along to my son. The moment of this transition occurred rather quickly; the first warning signs presented itself during the process of creating a login. Let me give you a few examples:

The Login: K decides against my advice to pick something very easy to remember (because how often are we going to actually use this login? Please, for the love of all things good, let’s not have to use this login more than two or three times, okay?) for his login and decides to go with something more amusing to him—DeathDevilCatz666.* He giggles like a small child while typing this in. I begin to wonder if a user’s account login is part of the score report that is sent to the schools he will later choose…

Institutional Preferences: Despite listing himself as male in the basic demographic data section, the questionnaire allows him to select that he would prefer to attend an all-female school for college (as opposed to co-ed or all-male). I don’t blame this one on him as much as I do the company that administers the ACT. Folks, you are dealing with adolescent boys here. Did you think this wouldn’t happen time and again?

Ethnicity: It has become apparent that the standard response J and I always give the boys about ethnicity in an effort to promote tolerance for all people (“Ah, we’re mutts. We probably have a little bit of everything in us!”) has been taken in the most literal sense as my son clicks every ethnicity option available to him, including ‘other’.  Again, I blame the questionnaire more than my son on this option. Firstly, why do allow all of the options to be selected? There’s like, 30 options! And what do you really mean by ‘other’? When you have 30 options previous to the ‘other’ at the bottom of the question, the only things that could remain as potential ‘others’ are panda bear and alien!

The Picture: Long gone are the days of ACT registration where you filled out a half-page form in the counselor’s office at school, and threw twenty bucks at them. Oh, no. In addition to the questionnaires that took roughly 15 hours to answer, you now must upload a picture of the test-taker, to be compared to both their physical appearance and their photo ID, on test day. This is an effort curb any impropriety by those who may be swayed into having a smart kid take the test for them. That’s fine; I understand your reasoning and this is a very simple request. That being said, dear company, you are dealing with adolescent males, and you should expect a certain level of shenanigans when it comes to the selfie taken on the phone or computer and uploaded for identification purposes on test day. And why, WHY would you even consider posting that photo to the score reports you send to their selected schools? The urge to be original/creative/creepy/humorous in a way that only appeals to other teenage boys becomes overwhelming to the young males in question, and you WILL get the oddest selfies taken by humans. I took no less than 56 pictures of my son making some of the oddest faces known to man. Seriously, some of these poses will haunt my dreams for years to come. Why did he feel the urge to throw his head back, shrink his neck (how does he even do this? Is my child some type of constrictor?) to virtual nonexistence, and stick out the tip of his tongue? Why does he feel the need to take a photo of himself demonstrating exactly how wide a human being’s eyes can open? Why did he feel the need to wear an ugly Christmas sweater in the photo (the sweater in question features a cat, and says “Meowy Christmas” on it)? WHY? I finally selected a slightly blurry photo that only ranked at about 42% on the creepiness scale when I lost all parental authority and doubled over in stomach-pain-inducing laughter for so long I was afraid the registration was going to time out and we would have to start the 15 hour process all over again.

There are several things I learned from this registration experience, but two items are significant enough to note here. First and foremost, there is no doubt that this is, in fact, MY child, and obviously, all the weirdness I thought I had handily hidden away in the recesses of my mind where no one can see has been quietly seeping out, unbeknownst to me, in ways that my children have been able to observe and model.  Second, and I don’t know how I am going to accomplish this quite yet (thank goodness I still have some time), I am going to need to be better prepared when it’s actually time to apply to the colleges themselves and to financial aid. I have a feeling it’s going to involve copious amounts of wine.

*That’s not his actual login. I have substituted a login name made up by me. I cannot actually match the oddness of his login. This feels important to note.

The Waiting Game

Photo Source

I hate waiting. I’ve always been impatient. Now, it seems the universe is out to teach me my big lesson on patience. I apparently will begin by learning to wait on EVERYTHING.

I’m waiting for my hair to grow back in.

I’m waiting for the pimples to go away.

I’m waiting for the stress and anxiety levels to go back down.

I’m waiting for my vitamin deficiencies (the official word from my doctor) to resolve.

I’m waiting to feel hungry again (the supplements I’m on don’t mix well with an anxious stomach).

I’m waiting to see if they accept our offer on the house.

In the evenings I wait for Jason to get home, and then I wait for supper to be over, and then for the boys to go to bed, and I don’t even know why… I end up falling asleep shortly thereafter. What the hell am I waiting for?

Related: I’m waiting for good television to come back on.

I’m waiting to see if I can connect with some of my friends and blatantly use them to get out of my funk. I think I really need to connect with some of my girlfriends. Like, y’all might want to start a phone call calendar.  And plan a weekend. Like, NOW. For Sarah’s sanity.

Have I mentioned I am trying to wait patiently for my hair to go back to normal?

I’m waiting for that divine spark of creativity to ignite in me, and then I find exactly what I am meant to contribute, what I am meant to share of myself. Can’t forget to mention that I’m waiting on that!

It feels as if I’m waiting on everything, even if it’s not really the case. And this, THIS MONSTROUSLY HUGE AND ANXIETY PRODUCING (and oh, my God, will even more of my hair fall out with all of this anxiety???) waiting game, which is likely little more than a figment of my imagination, is making you wait on things. Like regular posts. Or the coffee mug Alex won with the Spam Comments contest (Sorry Alex! I promise I will send it to you soon!). Or for me to do anything of any worth on social media (I don’t even remember the last time I signed onto Twitter). You see? Phone call calendar… Regular check-ins for Sarah… Let's all chip in to get her back on track...

Or perhaps I should take a deep breath, my lumps, and get over myself. Which is what I’m trying to do.

While I wait.

Let’s Get Real for a Moment

Let’s discuss something women never really talk about. Let me be the one to open up and make myself vulnerable on the interwebs. Let’s talk for a moment about the effects of stress on the body.

First, a recap: In the past year, we’ve worked through treatment for K’s OCD, I wrote and won a grant, I spent two solid months spending most of my time in a hospice facility with my grandfather, and then there was Ant. Oh, did I not tell you about Ant? And how he broke his arm? Let’s follow that tangent for a moment…

I was out of town at a work conference when I got the call—the call from school that every parent dreads. “Sarah, we know you’re out of town. We cannot get a hold of J. We need you to call him right now. Ant fell on the playground, and they’re stabilizing him now, but we’re fairly certain he broke his arm.”

I got back into town that day in time to meet the docs who had taken three series of x-rays of my son’s shoulder and arm, and given him the pain medication that made him even more philosophical than he already is. An example:

Me: Ant! What happened to you, kid?

Ant: I don’t really remember. There are many things I don’t remember… perhaps we’re not meant to remember everything in life!

Me: Wow. Okay.

J: He did NOT hit his head. They gave him something for the pain.

Me: Ant, they said you fell down?

Ant: Ah, yes. I’m not sure what happened. I remember sitting up, realizing I landed in a mud puddle, and that I had lost my shoes…

The long and the short of it was this—Ant separated his humorous at the growth plate between the long part of the bone and the ball joint for the shoulder. This, and he’d also partially dislocated his shoulder. Because my kid is a badass, when he sat up and realized something was wrong with his arm, he apparently grabbed it and pulled it toward him just right—relocating his shoulder. Yes, let me repeat: Ant relocated his own shoulder…

Ah, but the shoulder (which is healing nicely, and in a manner consistent to Wolverine from the X-Men, according to the lovely orthopedic Ant’s seen) is not the only scare Ant’s given us. Last weekend it became apparent that the nasty little summer cold Ant got on Thursday was not just a cold. After battling a high fever on Saturday night, I took him to urgent care, where he was diagnosed with strep, a sinus infection, AND a middle ear infection. Then, to make matters worse, Ant decided to be allergic to the antibiotics he was prescribed, meaning that we got to visit urgent care more than once on Sunday…

And… did I mention we’re selling a place, and looking to buy another? By the time school starts in August?

So, as you can imagine, there’s been a little bit of stress in this household right now. At first this presented with insomnia. I dismissed it—I’d completely messed up my sleep schedule. Then my teeth started to hurt. Okay, perhaps I was grinding them again, in my sleep. And I had missed my dental checkup with my grandfather being ill. And I have sensitive teeth to begin with.

Then I realized I was drinking too much coffee and not enough water. Then I realized I needed to start taking my vitamins again. Then I realized I needed to start my regular exercise routine back up. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the small town doctor I had while growing up, it’s that water, exercise, and a Flintstones can cure many an ill. Perhaps that would fix my new breakouts. And my sore muscles. And the changes I’d noticed in my, you know, ‘cycle’…

And then, all of my excuses came crashing down when I noticed my hair.

At first, I noticed the hair at my temples seemed to be thinner. Not much thinner, but thinner, nonetheless. Okay, well, when one lives in a hospital setting, one tends to pull their hair into a ponytail every day. I just needed to be more careful… Then, this week, I noticed I had a spot on the top part of my head. I was going bald.

A note from J: He would like me to express that my definition of going bald more closely matches the definition the general public would have of a spot near the crown of my head where my hair is slightly thinner, and my part seems just a tad bit larger than normal, and that 99% of the population would not even notice such a thing on their own head, much less someone else’s. While my rational brain says, “Yes, I understand that I’m the only person noticing this,” my emotional brain says, “Oh. My. God. I am losing my hair! Will J still love me when I’m bald???”

So, since it was evening, and doctor’s tend to frown when you call them at ten at night, I Dr. Googled that shit. Come to find out, I could have a hormone or thyroid imbalance (which I’ll certainly get checked out), but the more likely culprit is that I’ve had significant stress within the past six months that’s taxed my system.

Oh. So it is stress. Huh. I guess I have to admit it now.

Women do not like to talk about these things. We don’t even like to think about them. Long, lustrous hair and a clear complexion and a physically toned body reaches out and smacks us in the face every time we look at a magazine, watch TV, or see a movie. Everyone looks as if they’re 24, and if you don’t, there’s something wrong with you.

Yet, these things happen. They happen to a lot of us. The hair-thinning thing? Dr. Google says that will happen to half of us by the time we’re 50, and then it seems it’ll happen to the other half of us in our 50s and 60s. The breakout thing? Well, that happens to a whole bunch of us as well. Look at all the items one can buy in the health and beauty section of any store. And don’t even get me started on the lines I’m noticing on my forehead… Or the grays. Or my eyelashes. Or the 13 pounds I’ve gained in the past year. Or how one’s body hurts when they’re under a whole bunch of stress.

I think we need to get real about this: the hair thinning thing, but more generally, the changes that happen to us women in our 30s, 40s, and beyond. The changes that are natural, the ones that can be caused by stress or fatigue, and the ones that certainly need to get checked out. So, here I am, with a spot right smack in the middle of my forehead that I’m certain will be a monstrous pimple by the weekend, a “balding” pate, and a giant bottle of water that I hope will fix it all. And I’m telling you all about it on the internet, so that if you have to Google something along these lines, you’ll feel just a little less alone.