Honesty

I started this blog to remember how to laugh. To find the joy in my life after the death of my youngest son. For the most part, it worked. I've laughed a lot. I've met new friends and the boundaries of my life have opened up beyond anything I could ever imagined.

But in focusing on all the positive, funny little things over the last four years, I never fully worked through the heart ache of losing my Shale. I just kept pushing that pain away, telling myself time will take care of the wound. When grief would rear it's ugly head I'd write a post and then close my computer and myself from actually working through it.

These last few months all that time delayed grief has been wresting on my shoulders like an angry Silver Backed Gorilla, thumping the back of my head and yanking on my hair as though bananas would magically sprout of my ears. It's been hard to forget.

Bringing home Jumby has been a dream come true and a joy but also a constant reminder of who isn't here, the invisible brother who lives only in the shadows of our hearts and behind the glass of a dusty picture frame.

It's been tough. I more often than not find myself struggling with guilt because I can no longer remember Bug's scent or the sounds of his laughter and I worry he will wonder if I love him less because I have a new son. When I'm not plagued with guilty thoughts over Bug then I'm freaking out wondering if I'm loving Jumby and his siblings enough or if I'm being unfair to them when thoughts of Shale creep in and take the shine off a sunny moment.

Because I'm a little more self aware now than I was immediately after Shalebug's passing, I recognize I'm struggling. I've spent time with a therapist, I've dutifully swallowed the little pills guaranteed to balance out my brain and put a smile on my face and I've wrestled with my emotions the same way my eldest son wrestles with the boys on the playground.

So I have been taking time off from my writing to get my head on straight. And I've also been laying on my couch moaning to the baby Jeebus and every one who will listen about the evils of germ infested children who keep passing one nasty virus to me after another. I can barely see the floor around my couch as it's scattered with used tissues and my damn dog perches herself on my shoulder so her her tongue can dart out like a frog's after a fly to lick any tasty morsels of snot before I can even manage to reach for the tissue. It's been (sarcasm) fun. (/sarcasm)

I just wanted to explain my lack of regular posting here. I feel tremendously shitty about neglecting my blog but at this point it's all I can do to keep my head above water and breathe. Literally and figuratively.

I promise I'm doing my best to find my funny bone again.

And decongest and stay germ free for a period longer than a nanosecond.

You're patience is appreciated and to my long time readers, I thank you. To my new readers, um, I am emotionally tortured and one day I'll write great odes about finding my sanity but maybe in the meantime you should check out the Bloggess. Heh. And to those who abandoned me? Here, I've a used tissue I'd like you to have.

Thanks for your patience.

Kicking Arse and Taking Names

Life has been kicking my ass lately. In fact, it's been hard to walk what with the Universe constantly shoving it's boot up my arse.

I've been limping along as though I have a raging case of hemorrhoids and quite frankly, I'm rather tired of walking bow legged.

Yesterday, I had enough.

I can't pin point the exact moment I decided I was done, but I'm fairly certain it came after having my son's bowels explode out his diaper, his pants and his shirt and into his car seat and shoes, but before pushing my now half naked child (who was still rather smelly since I ran out of wet wipes and was forced to use crumpled napkins and pages from flyers stuffed under the seat to wipe his butt,) in his wheelchair only to have the rear left wheel fall off while we attempted to make a doctor's appointment we were already late for.

It was sometime as I was bent over, trying to ram the wheel back into place with fingers were covered in grease, my hair was falling out of it's pony tail, my pants were smudged with oil stains and specks of poo that I realized I didn't have to take this crap anymore.

I could rise up and fight back. Put my boot in the Universe's ass for one.

Alright. So I may have been a little delusional at this point but do you blame me?

So it is with great glee that I present to you my List. A list composed of itemized things I'm planning on kicking. (And by kicking I mean figuratively because to do it literally would take energy and action and quite frankly, I'm still sore from having my own ass handed to me yesterday.)

Still. I'm kicking ass and taking names.

Starting with the wheelchair ramp. The wheelchair ramp that we started in July and are still not finished. The wheelchair ramp we desperately need since, you know, Jumby sits in a wheelchair and none of us have figured out how to tap into our powers of teleportation to get his fifty pound chair out of the back seat of my vehicle and into the house by itself.

Who would have thought building a simple wheelchair ramp would end up such a complicated and time sucking activity that has tested the bonds of an otherwise healthy marriage more than once? It's kicking my ass and my husband's and I'm done. You can bite me wheelchair ramp. Once you are built I'm totally kicking you.

Then I'd like to kick my kids school administrators who have deemed the only time the junior high girls can have access to the school gym is before school hours. In fact, all girls activities are schedule before school while the boys get all the after-school access to the gym they want. I'm tired of having to haul my sorry ass out of bed before the damn sun rises just so my daughter can toss a ball around while wearing her school colours. I need my beauty sleep yo. Let the boys get their asses out of bed for awhile.

After that, I'd like to runt punt my dopey dog Diera who has taken to piddling beside my bed every damn night no matter how many times I take her out in the evening. We are in a power piss off it seems and she's winning.

To that kid who called me old and snickered about my tattoos when I went to pick up Fric and Frac from school the other day: You are lucky I didn't kick your ass. Enjoy squandering your youth now. Because I guarantee you one day you will look back on your life and wonder how the hell that snot nosed brat disappeared and morphed into someone staring middle life in the face, while raising a passel full of kids and spending your days doing other peoples laundry while wearing the same stained yoga pants you wore two days in a row.

My tattoos rock you twerp.

To the makers of my son's wheelchair. I am gunning to put my foot in your booty. How bout making a product that doesn't fall apart while my child is sitting in it and I'm pushing it along? I mean, really? Is that so very much to ask for? Is ittttt??? *twitch*

And finally, to the programmers who tweak iTunes so damn often that my iPod no longer wants to sync to my computer. Out of everyone in the world, you are the ones I really itch to kick. My toes twitch eagerly at the thought. Everytime I try to sync my iPod, iTunes tells me my computer isn't authorized and would I like to authorize. Everytime I say yes and press the authorize now button. And every time iTunes decides that my computer is already authorized and then tells me if I don't sync my iPod I'm going to lose almost a 1000 songs off my iPod. Lather, rinse, repeat and on and on the circle goes until I'm yelling obscenities at inanimate objects and my children are hiding under their beds.

Would it be so much to ask for a product that works when it is supposed to work? I mean, I do everything you ask. I update when told to, I buy the products you want me to, I worship at the altar of Apple for f*ck's sake. So when I want to put a little Eminem on my iPod (music I bought from you I might add) I shouldn't have to lose my damn mind in the process.

So today, today is the day I take back control of my butt cheeks and publicly proclaim I am done bending over for the Universe. I am reclaiming my power. My dignity. My sanity.

Or, today is the day I sit on the couch, paralyzed with fear that the world really is out to get me so I sit and write hostile vapid threats to anonymous people in an attempt to feel better about my lot in life.

Either way, my weekend is already looking up.

Learning New Things

Yesterday was my day of reckoning.

It was one of those rare days when you wake up, stare at the ceiling and mutter "Shit," before limping out of bed and facing the day.

If there were any way to have avoided yesterday, I would have found it. I'm a highly creative gal. The sheer number of ways I manage to put off and get out of domestic duties would astound and amaze Houdini himself.

But my luck ran out yesterday. My number was called. The jig was up. Yesterday, I had to face the music.

It was the day I had to face the fact I am no longer a young spring chicken, but am instead an aging woman hurtling towards middle age at a speed faster than light can travel and wrinkles form.

Yesterday, I had to go for the dreaded MRI test to see if, having failed a neurological exam, I would require surgery to restore my once super powers of bendiness.

I learned a few things about myself in this process.

The first being, it is never wise to ask your loving husband who may or may not be already annoyed with you for A.)Letting the dogs sleep with him when he loathes my dogs, B.) Not doing a something he has repeatedly asked me for months to do (like our personal taxes) and C.)Not waking him up with an act of wifey love (read: blowjob.) to help you remove certain pieces of body jewelry so that your body doesn't explode like an atomic bomb while undergoing the MRI scan.

I knew I was in trouble when my husband, who normally moans and groans when I ask him to help me do something (like move furniture or build a wheelchair ramp), lit up like a bulb on a Christmas tree and practically tripped over his own feet running to the shed to grab a pair of pliers.

I started to have second thoughts about the wisdom of my decision to ask Boo tug out my nose ring just around the same time he cackled evilly and leered at me with what can only be interpreted as malicious intent and snapped the pliers open and shut a few times mere millimeters away from my nose.

"Hey! Watch what you are doing with those!!" I yelped as I squirmed further away from the pliers.

"I'll be careful. Have a little trust in me, Tanis," he reassured me as he snapped the pliers again beneath my nose.

(Note to self: Next time you put a nose ring and decide to take the ball out and just squeeze the hoop shut remember the sound of pliers snapping underneath your nose hairs.)

So I took a deep breath, nodded to him that I was ready and squeezed my eyes tightly shut.

All went well as my husband delicately opened the metal hoop looped through my nose until I heard a "Whoops!" It was right at that exact moment my nostril felt like it was being ripped off my face. That or my nostril had suddenly dilated to ten centimeters in preparation for the twenty pound booger I was about to give birth to.

"OWWWWW! Watch what you are doing you muthaf**bleep*!!!"

"Sorry! Sorry! The pliers stuck together and then sprang open suddenly. I didn't mean to do that!" Boo half apologized, half laughed so hard the couch shook.

Bugger.

In the end, the delicate removal process of my nose ring was successful if you define success by having the ring ripped from my nose, pliers stretch my nostril out of shape so that my nose is forever lopsided and all the nose hairs yanked from the interior of my nostril by what I highly suspect was NOT an accident.

At least there was no blood.

It wasn't much longer after this brutal attack on my face that I learned another thing about myself.

When strapped to a gurnery and stuffed into a metal tube then barraged with what can only be described as construction noises (think jackhammers and the high pitch whine of a metal saw) I am apparently a wee bit claustrophobic.

By wee, I mean full on get me the f&ck out of this space ship right now before the aliens descend, suck out all the air in my chest and implant alien embryos in my eye sockets.

It wasn't bad at first, if one can overlook the indignity of having to parade around in a hospital gown while her boobs happily flap around and wave hello to all the hot Doogie Howser doctor types who are trying really hard not to make direct eye contact with the crazy lady.

My ego will never recover. And when did I get so old that I became invisible to hot young 2o somethings??? I blame my beaver tail boobs for this.

When I first laid down on the MRI gurney, I was pleasantly surprised to find out this wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Sure the tube was a little tight, but it was brightly lit, and I had earphones playing 70's easy rock. This was totally doable I told myself as the technician told me to lay still.

No problem. I could lay still. I am a responsible grownup capable of following basic directions.

Then the machine started.

WHUMP THUMP BUMP!! (Why do they give you headphones playing lovely 70's rock when the banging of the damn machine is so loud you can't hear anything other than the noises the aliens make when they are coming to get you???)

Still. I was calm. It was all good. This MRI stuff is a cake walk. I could have a nap I thought, just as the gurney started moving me back out of the long metal coffin tube.

"Wow! That was quick!" I sat up and happily exclaimed to the technician when she came into the room.

"Ya, well we want to try something different to get a better image." Said as she shoved me back down to lie flat on the gurney.

"Did I do something wrong?" I mean, I held as still as I could. My left eye may have twitched but I have no control over that. Surely they can't be upset by the rise and fall of my diaphragm. A girl has to breathe.

"Nope. It's just this is a new magnet and the machine engineer is here and he wants to try something different. This is a really good time to get a MRI. Sure it may take a bit longer as he fiddles, but he's just trying to make sure we get the best images possible. You are kinda like a guinea pig for all the people to follow. Lucky you!"

Ya. Lucky me, I thought as the nurse put a heavy grate type of contraction over my chest, strapped my arms down and smiled at me. "Remember, this may take a bit longer as the engineer gets everything perfect, but in the end you will get more images out of this and everyone will benefit!!!"

If I could have sat up and slapped the overly cheerful smile off her face I would have.

That's when the fun started. Suddenly being stuffed into a long metal tube while being strapped to a table and forced to listen to loud noise wasn't fun. The aliens were coming! I couldn't breathe. I panicked over every breath. The world was ending! The sky was falling!



"How you doing in there, Tanis?" a voice from the Outer Limits asked.

Instead of admitting that a herd of small little demons were taking over my body and eating my brains or admitting I may have wet myself a little from fear, I said, "I'M FINE. GO ON AND CONTINUE. THIS IS FUN!!"

And that's when I learned yet another thing about myself.

Apparently, while shoved into a long metal tube while being strapped down and going deaf from the noise, I'll crack inappropriate jokes out loud to entertain myself and the aliens from the Outer Limits.

I figured it was either amuse myself by pretending to be onstage at a comedy club or go stark raving mad as the aliens SAT on my chest and harvested my brain through a long invisible straw.

By the time the exam was over and I was released from my tubular prison, my hospital gown had pit stains the likes I've never seen before and the nurses were wondering if I needed to be escorted to the psych ward.

After the MRI I had a follow up exam with yet another neurosurgeon. Who came to the exact same conclusion the other doctors already formed without me having to be the human wienie in a MRI hotdog bun.

I'm having back surgery. Whether I like it or not.

Which leads me to the last thing I learned about myself: I cannot bend the universe to do my bidding no matter how strong my will, nor how optimistically delusional I am beforehand.

And they say you can't teach old dogs new tricks. Snort. Just look at how much I learned about myself in one day.

Woof woof.