Woman of Few Words

I haven't had a thing to talk about lately. I've been too overwhelmed with school. Tests, papers, quizzes, pretending like I still care after ten weeks of something I swore I'd never do again. Like the time I said I'd never work at a restaurant where I had to sweep up peanuts and then went to work at a place where people thought the floor was the garbage can.

My skin has been so dry. The heels of my feet are so dry and cracked (disgusting, I know) that I could barely walk. I finally had a minute to get a pedicure on Monday. Of course, I had that minute--sixty of them to be exact--because Saturday night, I woke to the smell of cigarette smoke. It permeated through my sheets. I thought maybe I was dreaming. Then I realized that I knew where the smell was coming from; a man was sleeping in the vestibule of my building. He has been doing this for months (Nearly every weekend since the soup kitchen opened across the street in an old church we've had this guy as our guest. In nine years, I have never seen anyone going to Sunday service there. I did see a wedding party leaving one night about five years ago. They were a rowdy bunch.)

Well, this man is not homeless. He lives about ten blocks up the street. I am guessing he's not wanted there. Probably because he likes to get his drink on and piss in the doorways of random buildings and then sleep there. He never really seems drunk but he is rather hostile, so for all I know...he could be hammered. Or perhaps he reacts to dark liquor the way several of my ex-boyfriends used to, if you know what I mean. And honestly, if one of those exes was the type of guy who would be willing to sleep in the doorway of a building he didn't live in, or had been out doing something that would make him think sleeping in some doorway was more appealing than going to his own home a few blocks up the street...I wouldn't want him to come home either.

I called the girl upstairs to see if she would look over the railing and out the front door to see if the guy was in the vestibule. I didn't want to open my door because it squeaks and I didn't want him to hear me. I co-sleep still and would have had to carry baby with me. I called the police and my neighbor called our landlords. Turned out they are in Florida, but said that yes, we should have him arrested. There are signs posted saying "No Trespassing" and "You will be prosecuted." Obviously people are very afraid of signs.

I said 'goodbye' to the dispatcher and as I was hanging up little baby said, "Bye-bye" and then proceeded to vomit like she had just drank four six-packs. It was awful. It lasted for about a minute. Just coming out of her like a can of springy snakes. She cried for all of five seconds and then proceeded to laugh hysterically and run around like a crazy person. She kept kissing her reflection in my full-length mirror which gave me a few seconds to take all the blankets off the bed...and my pajamas...and socks...and her pajamas. Such a mess. I piled it all in the hallway and had to leave it on Sunday because I didn't have any quarters for the washer and dryer downstairs.

I had a huge test to study on Monday and a paper due on Tuesday that was extra credit, yet I let them both stress me out to the point of utter avoidance. I couldn't even wrap my mind around how much work I had to do. So Sunday afternoon, I got my mom to watch baby for a couple of hours so that I could go to the library and work for a bit.

On Monday, I dropped baby off at school and went to the laundromat to clean the blankets and figured I might as well do my dark clothes while I was there. I studied as best I could while I was there and then after, decided to go to the nail salon a couple of doors down for a pedicure, no polish. I told the girl about my cracked heels and how the right heel was very sore. She was on the phone the entire time I was there, but didn't seem bothered by having to file and hold the phone with her cheek. I abhor the phone and would hate to have to work like that and talk at the same time. After she filed my toenails, which drives me absolutely bonkers to the point of total discomfort, she applied moisturizer to my feet and get this...superglue to the cracked open area on my heel. Nice. It worked, but dang. I could've done that at home for a buck seventy. At the end, during the massage portion, she used what I believe was a car buffer to massage my legs and my feet. It was a little much. Yet I let her continue doing it while I reviewed chapter three, sections one through five.

Now the skin on my face is so dry that it is flaking into my hair and it looks like I have giant dandruff.

Argh.

Wake Up, Will Ya?!?

Okay...I have been telling people for about oh...a month that Huddy will be fourteen months on the fourteenth. Um...not until about 2 p.m. today did it hit me that she will, in fact, be fifteen months on the fourteenth of November. Where have I been?

I'll tell you where I've been. Trying to decide if I should stay in school or quit and get fourteen or fifteen jobs to make ends meet. I think my journalism degree/license in massage therapy/freelance writer background scares the buhjeesus out of potential employers, when it should honestly tell them that I am willing (that's for you, Leeburd) to do anything as long as I stay busy. I normally get myself into trouble if I'm left to my own devices. This also explains why I am usually fourteen to fifteen minutes late wherever I go. I could walk out the door fifteen minutes early, but with all that extra time on my hands...why don't I reorganize the pantry? Or write a letter? Or clean out all the drawers in my dresser? You see how it goes.

I sold my old engagement ring today. I will post a picture later. I didn't cry (though I know one certain friend is bawling right now in the fetal position). I didn't get what it was worth or rather, what I could've gotten had I sold it myself (not on eBay to some shyster from some fourth world country...don't even get me started....), but I feel that the price I was paid far outweighed listing the ring on craigslist, meeting the buyer in a gas station parking lot, being kidnapped at knife point and left naked in a field two hundred miles from home. The jeweler was very kind and threw in a sterling silver chain and disk pendant. I am having it engraved with an H for baby. I've been looking for something like it to wear with the peridot my dear dear friend got me on the day Huddy was born.

I went to Huddy's pediatrician today to have a form signed for her daycare claiming that I do not want her eating "milk or any dairy product or food that has been prepared with dairy (i.e., mashed potatoes, mac 'n cheese, etc.), fruit juice with artificial coloring that leaves a red mustache on her upper lip for the whole of the weekend, or hot dogs or processed meat (i.e., "lunch meat" on bread which I assume can only mean bologna). Sure, call me a freak; a psycho mommy even. Hopefully they're not spitting in her organic applesauce and squash before they serve it to her just because I'm annoying and ask for too much. I've busted my ass to feed her well her entire life and now I'm going to send her to school so she can, with her nearly four teeth, eat a thing referred to as "cheese stick," carrots and ranch dressing, cheese pizza pockets with a side of pizza crust and a fucking spinach salad! Hello?? She's quasi-fifteen months old.

After the doctor signed the form, the nurse returned it to me and said, "If she's 18 months old and only has four teeth, the doctor wants you to make an appointment. She may need x-rays." I said, "She's fourteen months old." She said, "Oh, I thought you said 'eighteen months'." I said, "Well, you wrote down her birthdate." She said, "Oh, yeah. My grandson didn't get his teeth until he was fourteen months old." Okay. So I can see how you'd be alarmed. Thanks for sharing.

I left and grabbed a quick lunch and ran to school to be a little early for class. It was then I realized I still haven't changed the time in my Jeep. Or on my watch. So I really must've realized Huddy is nearly fifteen months old at 1 p.m. and not 2 p.m.

I'm keeping us both young without even trying.

Congratulations, America. You Did Good.

Ass Ending Person Tiles

I wish I'd kept a journal over the years of all the things I've misheard. There have been a lot, often followed by me repeating what I thought I heard and the sayer saying, "What on earth does that mean?" And I would say, "I don't know that's why I asked."

Perhaps it's because I'm hard of hearing. I already told you that I got the lyrics to songs wrong. Some of them have been pretty hysterical, especially if the speaker was British or Irish or Australian. I have trouble sometimes following what is being said which is more upsetting to me than anyone else, trust me. I would just figure it was a foreign idiom I wasn't picking up on when, in fact, they were probably just asking me for the correct time or if they could borrow the empty chair at my table.

Nevertheless, baby talk is really helping me to understand what seems to be a foreign language. Baby says, "Bless you" every time I sneeze, and she says, "Hush!" when we get to that page in Goodnight Moon. Yes, she's a genius. Her mother, on the other hand, still needs a little work when the professor is discussing the ascending order of numbers and percentiles.