The tale of Sneaky Baby-- Part 1

This story starts with a bump. A little, tiny bump.

Just kidding, not that one. That's not very "little" these days, anyway.

The bump I'm talking about appeared in September... on my toe. I had noticed a small, swollen red spot-- a bug bite? A super-sexy ingrown toe hair?

(Sorry Sneaky Baby, reading this 12 years from now. This is not a very cute beginning to your tale.)

A week later, the little bump had amassed into a gnarly red & purple welt with something that looked disturbingly... "pop-able" on top.

I didn't really have time to go to the doctor: I was doing a hardcore "whole food" detox where I had to cook everything from scratch, I was lifeguarding at 5AM, teaching swim lessons in the afternoon, and cramming for the two "grown-up" interviews I had within a few days.

Meanwhile, the toe bump kept growing. It was starting to make me limp a little.

The first interview went incredibly well. Afterwards, I kept plugging away at making a printed art portfolio for my next (graphic designer) interview. Horrifyingly sooner than later, it was the night before this interview and I still felt miles from "ready."

I kept working on the portfolio until 1am. Just kidding, I kept working until 4am.

Just kidding, I stayed up ALL EFFING NIGHT without a wink of sleep, sucking down coffee, frantically tinkering and rearranging images. I mean, it's just not possible to make a printed booklet look good enough for a job where you will make printed booklets.

With only two hours before my interview and fingers tightly crossed, I sent my file to Kinko's. Then (in lieu of a nap of course) I crammed, crammed, crammed for any answers this guy could possibly throw at me.

Dressed in the snazzy outfit I'd had planned for a week (thanks to mi amiga Kelley), I went to put on my high-heeled "lady" shoes.

Bad idea.

I just about YAKKED from the searing pain that shot through my toe when I tried to stand up. That sucker was pretty much rotting from the inside out at this point. (Not to mention I still had a healing broken toe on that foot as well.) But in my delirious state, there was no way I was changing shoes.

At this point I probably shouldn't have been driving, but I swung by Kinko's, picked up my rockin' portfolio, managed to avoid any car accidents, and ab. so. lute. ly. NAILED this interview. Like, to the point where we were discussing my starting date by the end of it. What the hell?! It's like I had a lucky charm or something (...wink.)

Back safely at home (again, Holy Lucky Charm Batman... don't ever drive on zero sleep) I took my shoes and tights off.

Oh dear.

My entire left foot was puffed up like it had tried to make sweet love to a rattlesnake. I had to go to the hospital and get antibiotics before this got into the rest of my bloodstream.

The thought of "antibiotics" spurred the first moment of clarity I'd had in about a week, and things started clicking into place. Like, how I (almost) never get sick, yet the other night I couldn't finish cooking my favorite dinner because the smell was making me gag. And how I'd cried about three times in the past week. And how... eh, I wasn't very good at keeping track of this, but it was probably about time for the ol' uterus to do its thing again. And it hadn't.

I had a feeling that antibiotics wouldn't be okay if... gulp. Yeah. The p-word.  I asked The Google and The Google confirmed: antibiotics and the p-word don't mix too well.

Luckily I had a peestick in the bathroom, and luckily I had some pee. I actually wasn't even nervous, because there was no way I was pregnant. That happens to grown-ups. That happens to people who have their shit together. That happens to people who have been trying and trying to get knocked up for months and then do handstands for an hour after hitting the sack. This test was just The Responsible Thing To Do, so I could confidently tell the doctor that, why, yes, I AM currently eligible for antibiotics even though I have been half-assing "natural" birth control for the past two years. Surely all my "symptoms" were easily explained by stress and lack of sleep.

See? Two lines. Totally... wait. Two lines. TWO LINES.

whammo. Look what my pee can do.

 I grabbed the towel hanging next to the toilet, wadded it into my face, and screamed "OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD" for a good twenty seconds.

How... nurturing and maternal of me. (Fast forward to the present 33-weeks-pregnant where Sneaky Baby just gave me a guilt-inducing jab to the ribs).

It's like I had 50 brains with 50 sudden realizations all at once. "OHMYGOD. I'm not ready for this." "OHMYGOD. I get to see what Jason & I are like melded into one new little body." "OHMYGOD. It's in there right now." "OHMYGOD. Jason is going to die of happiness." "OHMYGOD. But I just accepted a full-time job PLUS a second part-time job." "OHMYGOD. My body is going to completely change --WAIT-- OHMYGOD. I get to finally have boobs."

But mostly: "OHMYGOD. Moms know everything and make everything better. I don't do that. That test has to be wrong somehow."

I felt like my heart was crushing between the amazement and protectiveness I felt for our little tiny offspring, and the paralyzing fear I felt that my life was changing forever and there was no going back.

I texted Jason (away at the gym) and told him I was taking The Gross Toe to the Emergency Room. He said he'd meet me there.

I feel like, maybe, I should get this checked out.

I just haven't been feeling too well lately.

Poor Jason... now he's got biohazard-iness all over his face.

Oh yeah, for the record, I HATE Z... I don't even like to say the word.

Shudder.

Anyway, we got invited to a "[Z-word] Potluck" and I almost didn't go for this reason alone. Then, I decided it might be therapeutic to hang out with... them and maybe just get to understand them a little better.

No, it wasn't therapeutic. And now I can't look in mirrors.

The kitchen sink can kill you

I almost never do dishes. You might be tempted to guess that this happens because I'm such an awesome cook, and Jason demonstrates his gratitude by cleaning up the kitchen every night after I ransack it.

WOW, that's really nice of you to guess that, you flatterer you. But I'm afraid the real reason is much darker; much more treacherous, and foreboding, and every other adjective for the word "sinister." I've seen what that sink and its shadowy cabinets below are capable of. I've seen what they can do... to a brave little beetle named Alazar.

This story takes place one painfully sleep-deprived night before a final presentation.

In architecture school, when you ask someone for the time, they don't say, "Ten-fifteen," or "Eight thirty-five," or even "Noon." They look deep into your soul with their darkened, hollow eyes, and robotically murmur something like, "86 hours 'til." 86 hours, that is, until the end of the world as they've come to know it. 86 hours until their 10-week-long project is due.

On this particular night, it was 3 AM, and I was horrified to find myself at FIVE HOURS 'til. I'd gotten one hour of sleep the night before, and only three the last few nights before that. I was frantic. The design was great, but now everything had dissolved into a frenzied flurry of trying to trace all my final drawings onto a large posterboard.

I'd laid out the final poster onto the largest flat surface in our apartment: the kitchen floor. I was flinging pens, running back-and-forth to the printer, and trying not to cry (not a pride thing, I just didn't want to smudge the ink.)

At around this Five Hours 'Til landmark, I felt my brain starting to lose its grip on reality. You know when you're lying in bed, halfway asleep, and you're vaguely aware of the random-ass chaos your subconscious is churning through? I had those spinning, echoey, nonsense thoughts racing through my head even though my eyes were open-- like somebody flipping through TV channels.

Stacy, can't you see, you're just not the girl for meee

Outside, beyond the vaguely schizophrenic goings-on within my own head, my apartment was undergoing its own strange transformation. It was time for the Bug Parade.

I didn't think much of the first few little creatures that crawled across my poster. But they kept coming. And coming. Soon, there were consistently at least five insects skittering across my poster at any given moment, and I was full-on tripping out like Dumbo during that weird, drug-induced "Pink Elephants" interlude.

At "Three hours 'til" (5 AM), out lumbered The King of All The Bugs. His name was Alazar, and he was a monstrous, gleaming black beetle. He was so large that each step he took made a scratching noise on my poster paper. I was so sleep-and-Bug-Parade-stoned that his bumbling gate easily hypnotized my weakened mind; I hummed my version of "Stacy's Mom" to him and smiled admiringly at his majestic waddle.

Then he majestically waddled across the section of the poster I needed to finish, and slapped me back into reality.

"Sorry, Your Highness, you've got to go for a little ride now," I apologized, and blew at him as hard as I could.

He bounced and skittered loudly across the kitchen floor, and came to a halt below the counters under the kitchen sink. His life was about to change forever.

Within milliseconds of skidding to a stop, THE BIGGEST BLACK WIDOW I'D EVER SEEEEEEEN pounced onto Alazar, King of All The Bugs. I shrieked.

The two of them blurred into a tangle of creepy black legs as I sat, frozen in shock. One of them started making a loud clicking noise, presumably Alazar's battlecry, and I sprung into action. I sprinted into the bathroom.

Once there, I froze with the realization that I had no idea why I'd gone to the bathroom. I looked around. Somewhere in my mind, I thought a can of hairspray was a great idea.

It wasn't.

I blasted the SH*T out of our leggy friends with hairspray, and the spray separated the two bewildered bugs a few inches from each other. I grabbed the longest stick I could find (a yardstick-- thank youuu, architecture supplies close at hand), and contemplated the spider's fate.

I don't like killing things, but Venomous Vicky had to move on to the afterlife that night. Too many small children lived nearby, and I had a grim responsibility to perform. I smooshed her giant creepy body flat onto the floor, whispering "sorrysorrysorry I'mreallysorryVicky OHGOD sorrysorrysorry." Possibly the creepiest I've ever looked/sounded in my whole life, right there.

I turned my attention to Alazar. He was in a horrifyingly disgraceful state, considering his royal ranking: the sticky hairspray had attached every last thing nearby to his body, and a ruthless combination of hairs and carpet fibers had wrapped his legs tightly to his body.

Oh, the guilt.

I grabbed a piece of paper, and tried to scootch him onto it with a pencil. Being the Vicious Warrior King that he was, he grabbed the pencil with his giant beetle-y chompers and held fast. I now had a pencil with an accidentally straight-jacketed King of All The Bugs hanging from the end of it.

With another pencil, I tried to pry the fibers off of his body. They didn't budge. In fact, if I pulled any harder I was sure that I'd rip his body off of his pencil-clamping jaws.

I had to give him a bath.

I took him to the bathroom sink, and held him under the faucet. I resumed my creepy habit of whispering "sorrysorrysorrysorry YourMajestyKingAlazar sorrysorryOHGOD sorrysorry" as I tried to gently pull off his ill-fitting sweater. It wasn't working.

But this dude knew what was UP. He wasn't King of All The Bugs for nothing, amigos. He began, meticulously, this motion that I can only describe as "petting himself" underneath the tangled fibers. And slowly, it seemed that they were loosening.

I acknowledged my inferiority in bug-freeing, set him in the bottom of the sink, and left to resume my architecture work. Ten minutes later, I returned to the bathroom to check on Alazar's progress.

At the bottom of the sink was an abandoned cocoon of maroon carpet fibers, and Alazar was triumphantly trying to sprint up the slippery sink walls.

YEAH F*** YEAH, ALAZAR. Ten minutes HAS to be some kind of hairspray-and-carpet-sweater world record. I was effing PROUD. WHAT A LITTLE STUDMUFFIN.

I offered him the pencil and he wisely (?) clamped on again. I took him back into the kitchen and put him underneath the refrigerator to recover in peace and dignity.

Oh, the adrenaline. I finished my poster in the remaining 2 hours like a champ. When Jason woke up, I proudly recounted The Tale of Alazar, King of Beetles.

He looked at my bloodshot, dilated eyes. He looked down at the fridge. He looked up.

"You... didn't put him outside?"

"JASON E. MATTHEWS. This poor tormented creature was just going for his innocent nightly stroll when he got tossed about in a windstorm, attacked by Venomous Vicky, sprayed down with foul, sticky, burning, suffocating toxins, wrapped up in a straightjacket, WATERBOARDED, and trapped in a frictionless pit. We shall harbor His Highness in our food-scrap-abounding, comfortably-heated apartment for the rest of his little life. HE IS A SURVIVOR.

"Also... you might want to wear boots, or squat on a chair, from now on when you wash the dishes... when *you* wash the dishes. Vicky's relatives want revenge against me."

Shudder.

And that's why I don't really like doing dishes anymore.

This is what happens to your face when you try to race the Hubster

One of those little things I somehow forgot to blog about:

Jason ran a half marathon last month (13.1 miles).  The dude hardly trained for it, and still managed to crank it out in just over 7 minutes per mile.

What?!!

But the best part? These photos of him & another guy duking it out on the home stretch:

Jason got passed! *cue look of intense determination

Jason passed him back! *cue victorious grin & stride like a RAPTOR GOING IN FOR THE KILL

Am I mean for laughing really, really hard at both of them?
...especially considering I haven't run more than a mile in about a month...?

Really terrible reasons to start a family

I'm watching my friends, one-by-one, succumb to baby fever. It's like a real-life version of the twitterpation scene from Bambi.

I keep expecting it to hit, but I've got nothing. I love kids, but babies? I don't get it.

So far, the only reasons I've even thought about starting a family have been... shallow. Very shallow. Such as:

We first liked the names "Emma," "Sophia," and "Will." But we all know what happened with those names. So a year ago we picked new ones (because how else do you pass long car rides?).

Sure enough, the new picks have started slowly creeping up the "most popular names" list. I keep having mini panic attacks every time a friend or relative gets knocked up (what if they use it first? eeeeeeeep). (So, current name candidates? Under lockdown.)

Plus, there are the materialistic things like THESE:

[from]

And THIS:

[from]

Another selfish reason: because I think pregnancy is the coolest thing ever. Your uterus grows to 1,000 times its size. If your whole body pulled that off, well... here are the tallest buildings in the world:

Here is you x1,000 next to those buildings:

LARGE & IN CHARGE, BABY.   L A R G E   &   I N   C H A R G E  .

And another terrible reason for getting knocked up? Because I am DYYYYING to have a puppy right now. And our apartment doesn't allow puppies, but it does allow babies. BAD April. Baby does not equal surrogate puppy.

Any more posts like these and the Child Services people are going to be waiting in the delivery room to seize our newborns.

Sure, I want kids someday. Sure, I've loved my future offspring ever since I realized I could have offspring. Sure, I've loved them even more since I met the guy who would be contributing half their chromosomes and raising them with me.

But I don't want them right now. (Okay, maybe a tiny bit. Like a 5.5-out-of-10 amount of Want.)
(But that's all.)
(& I hope they get his hair.)

Social Media Monkey

The mister & I are pretty awful about keeping in touch with friends. We'd quickly wither away as creepy hermits if we didn't have such awesome (read: persistent) friends. In fact, we'd probably have our own creole language in about two years.

Some common phrases in the Matthews(er) household. (SO... maybe less than two years on that creole.)

Both Jason & I are those weirdos who initially seem shy-- and then friends get to know us, and they're like, "How do you manage to keep all this crazy bottled up all the time?"

As for Jason? I DON'T KNOW. (& in the meantime, the crazy just brews itself stronger & stronger every day like those percolating coffee gizmos.)*
*(It leaks out in the form of that wild curly hair, I guess.)

As for me? I DON'T keep it it bottled up-- at least not within the endless, uninhibiting funpark called the 'internet.' Friend me on Facebook and I might just overwhelm you with my prolific thumbs-upping voracity.

But today? Today... I hit a desperate new low of social media overload.

I'm trained. They trained me.

I hit [SHIFT]+[ENTER] to start a new line in an email.

Remember when Facebook implemented this new commenting system? I didn't deal with it well at first:

Oh, the futile irony of ranting about Facebook... on Facebook.

The F-Book developers gave us a little grace period, when the [SHIFT]+[ENTER] instructions magically appeared below the comment form. And then, just as we were getting the hang of it, they disappeared.

I formed a far-fetched theory that I hoped would prove false. I logged onto Jason's semi-abandoned facebook account, and LO AND BEHOLD, the instructions were still there.

The F-Book was counting, on AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS, how many comments we left before they removed their little training-wheel instructions.


I'm tempted to go back to the sad little ghost town that is MySpace.

Just me & you, Tom.
Prepare yourself for the full brunt of the crazy.

Since we all know what day it is,

and since no one is going to take me seriously today (or any day if you know what's good for you),
I'll just post a picture.

 {from here}

Also, enjoy the new widget to the right!

^^EDIT: Sorry, I took it down after April Fool's Day! It was this : )

Premature Maturity

I'm turning 24 in about a month, but lately you'd think it's four times that number.

The last things I do before I go to bed at night include:

• worry that I'm becoming senile. (i.e. the most recent debacle where I lost my apartment key, borrowed Jason's key to check in the storage closet, and promptly locked HIS in the storage closet. Those were our only two keys.) (I may have Alzheimers, but at least I don't have Alzheimers.)
• trail off on long tangents. Where was I? 
• Oh yesss, things I do before bed: take pills for my hip injury. (Not pain pills, chillax.) (Wait, Chillax sounds like some sort of anti-anxiety medication, doesn't it?)
• slather on the anti-wrinkle cream (I'm a vain little old lady.)
• consider seeing a doctor about my bladder issues. I wish I were kidding.
• (as you can imagine, at this point Jason's all, "Hubba hubba, baby.")
• and check on my beard.

Once you consider my genetics, it's not so surprising. Meet the Papa Bear.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a teeeeny little bit. It's only one (although very manly) hair under my jaw, but I like to call it my beard to make the lonely little straggler feel like it has a place in the world. (Me constantly yanking it out probably contradicts this, but no one's pointed that out to it yet.)

So the last time I went to remove it, I could feel it with my hand, but I couldn't see it in the mirror like usual. When I finally tweezed it out, I understood why. IT HAD TURNED GRAY. I could see the exact point at which it had given up on melanin, too-- the last 25% of it was dark, and the rest of it was a bright, shiny silver. I can now tell my wee grandbabies that the first gray hair I ever got was my entire beard, all at once.

I told Jason that I'm thinking of growing it out, just to see how long it gets. I assured him that since it's silver, people probably won't notice it. At least until someone asks me a philosophical question & I have to pause, raise an eyebrow in deep thought, and slowly stroke my 8-inch silver strand thoughtfully between my thumb and index finger. Oh, the wisdom this shall impart.

This is what we've done the last four months

Jan. 2: Drag our weary butts through the door, unpack for the fourth time in four months, and gaze upon what this packing-unpacking, packing-unpacking, packing-unpacking, packing-unpacking routine has done to our apartment.
 
I mean, we're lucky to have traveled so much, and we're happy to finally get back to our little love nest, but this...

This doesn't even show the SEVEN loads of laundry.

 and this?!

The stuff we moved out of the way for our sub-leaser... but how did it all fit in our apartment in the first place?!

Somebody get me a shovel!! Because now I know what we'll be doing for the NEXT four months.

P.S. (There's always a P.S., isn't there?) Here's my favorite picture from our Florida trip-- Jason is just NAILING that Jack Sparrow impression. Here's another good one. Okay, I'm just going to go make a facebook album.

....Instead of cleaning.

We now have clean clothes and I am not undead

Warning: If you're within the first two seasons of Lost, and "the Hatch" doesn't sound familiar, then you might be subjected to mild spoilers.

After our fourth week of living in Sweden, Jason & I admitted that it was time to wash our two-weeks-worth of clothes. When you've worn all your underwear once-- and then once again, inside-out-- you know you're slacking on the whole "responsible adult" gimmick.

Seeing as Jason spends twelve hours a day in his Physics lab, it was my Sveedish housewifey doom to find a nearby washing machine and put our clothes in it. I soon came across a sketchy-looking door:

We're definitely looking at some long-lost Dharma Initiative Station here.

and tried my key on it. Nothing.

Relief washed over me, because this whole scenario was giving me some serious Lost flashbacks. Namely, the part when John Locke finally dynamited open the Hatch, and went inside despite the BIOHAZARD/ QUARANTINE sign. He totally deserved the surely impending zombie buffet on his brains.

Well, Karma loves a Judgy-McJudgersons like myself, because I suddenly had an idea to hold the blue, plastic thing that came with our keys up to the lock... and I heard a muffled click as the light flashed green. Sh*t.

I slowly cracked the door open, and this is what I saw:

It's impossible for me to look at this without imagining Resident Evil creatures scrambling across the ceiling.

I've put off writing about this little misadventure for over a month now, because I knew my writing skills will utterly fail at communicating the SHEER TERROR I felt at this moment.

I may or may not use an inexusable amount of artistic license when writing these posts... but it would be impossible to exaggerate my neurosis about zombies. Debilitating neurosis. I don't even like typing the word.

• The night after I saw "I Am Legend" in theater, I didn't sleep a wink. I trembled under my covers until the sun came up the next morning, and all those undead demons outside returned to their lairs.
• The one time some friends & I wandered into an abandoned Japanese theme park at night, I tearfully begged everyone to leave with me, lest we awaken the zombie infestation lurking in the shadows. ...That's an embarrassing memory.
• The night a stumbling drunk tried to break into my apartment when I was home alone, I DIDN'T SNEAK OUT THE BACK DOOR because I was completely convinced he was a zombie, and that he surely couldn't be the only one out there.

So. I believe the use of the word "debilitating" is justified.

And you'll be quite proud to hear that I actually entered this demonic-looking hallway, and let the door close behind me.

I shakily tried my key on various doors along the dark hallway until one finally opened, and I nearly... ahem... rendered yet another pair of pants ready for the wash.

That plastic bag made me scream a tiny bit.

Seriously, what IS this place?!

Finally, a windowed door revealed a dark room with silhouetted, whirring machines and red blinking lights. But the door wouldn't open.

Guys, at this point I was so terrified that it felt like an out-of-body experience. Although I could no longer feel my face, I could hear my teeth chattering. Every last survival alarm had gone off in my brain, and my adrenaline levels were such that I probably could have Edward-Cullen-ed a car.

To the side of the door, a metallic box displayed the same emblem the outside door had, so I waved my magic blue key at it.

"SVEEEEEEEDISH SVEEDISH, SVEEDY SVEED SVEEDISH."

I went Rambo on the buttons until it started to look like some sort of scheduling system. I guessed at making an appointment for the next afternoon and got the hell out of there. I didn't stop shaking for another twenty minutes.

* * *

The next afternoon, after a morning's worth of pep-talk and dread, I literally sprinted down the demonic hallway to the laundry room, our 40-lb laundry bag knocking me against the walls like a rubber pinball. This time, my key turned the lock light green and granted me access to the insidious-looking machinery inside.

Checking my back every three seconds, I began stuffing our clothes into a washer.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. This was the end. I knew it.


Body frozen in place, my head slowly turned to the side to behold two eyes glaring through the door window with black, bottomless RAGE. Like, 28-Days-Later RAGE.

For those of you with z-o-m-b-....etc. neurosis (seriously, I hate saying that word. I understand why wizards call Voldemort He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named)... anyway, those of you who suffer from my condition-- when you find yourself in this situation, you pray to God Almighty that that door opens. Because you know that if they ARE infected, they no longer have the mental capacity to open doors. Much less the advanced forethought to show up the day before and make an appointment with a magic 007-style key.

Well, it was not yet my time to succumb to viral cannibalism (ahhh, thank goodness for technical-sounding euphemisms), because the door swung open to reveal a disheveled, spandex-clad Sveede with a giant pregnant belly and a hamper full of socks. I could have hugged her.

She proceeded to rant at me in hormonal Sveedish as I smiled at her, semi-slumped against the washer in relief. I happily interjected to tell her that I didn't speak Swedish, and without missing a beat she switched to English and told me I was using HER washing machine that SHE had scheduled a week ago. Bless her fertile, still-human soul.

I gleefully moved my clothes to the next washer as she glowered behind me. If anyone could stop hordes of staggering undead, it was this ass-kicking, hormonal woman on a F***ING SOCK- WASHING MISSION.

I was safe. We now have clean clothes and I am not undead.

He calls it "The Claw"

He's not sure how he feels about it.

Little does he know... the feeling is mutual.