Labor Pains

Just to be clear from the outset: I have about ten friends who are pregnant at this very moment. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU. Clear? Okay.

Having all these pregnant friends, however, reminds me of how, the moment someone announces her pregnancy, people - like a spring termite hatch - come out of the woodwork to describe Their Terrible Pregnancy and Delivery. Example:

“When I was pregnant with little baby Jessifrance, I was actually on bed rest for 13 months! And I know that’s weird, because pregnancies are only 9 months, but that’s how serious it was! I was throwing up so hard, my intestines fell out! I had to have 26 ultrasounds, and Jessifrance had to have a full set of braces, including headgear, in the womb! My obstetrician said that I had the most terrible pregnancy on record!”

or

“When I had little baby Abercrombie, I was in labor for 17 days! Seriously! He came out with shoulder-length hair, and his toenails were two inches long! And they had to close off my area of the hospital because my screams were so deafening! My obstetrician said that I had the most painful birth on record!”

Now, here is just a little fact that I would like to point out: women have been having babies for as long as civilization has existed. Is it really that bad, if a rice paddy worker in China can squat in the middle of a field, push out a baby, and go back to work? If a fourteen year old girl living in the Amazon can do it? This is a biological function that can be done safely at home.

I had my own baby once, and I remember hearing so many horror stories, that I was certain that labor was going to be like having a serrated knife stuck directly up my babymaker with an exploding firecracker attached. Instilled with that fear, I refused to believe that the discomfort I was feeling was actually labor pains until my contractions were less than 3 minutes apart. I almost had that kid on I-270. And don’t write me back telling me, “Every labor is different; you were just lucky because mine was like being punched in the womb with a razorblade coated bowling ball,” because I don’t give a shit. Even if you had THE WORST LABOR IN HISTORY, where in the hell do you get off telling new, scared mommies how terrible it is?

Can you imagine this occurring in any other setting? Before you got your driver’s license, no one insisted on coming up to you and saying, “You know, when I learned how to drive, I crashed the car into a bus full of Down’s Syndrome children holding puppies. Decapitated every single one of them.” Because that is cruel and weird. But, for some reason, women get a sense of overwhelming glee in describing how terrible childbirth is. LIKE THEY ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVER GONE THROUGH IT. Get over it. You’re not special because you had a kid. You want to do something difficult, go solve poverty.

So, in closing, I just want to say a few things to my pregnant friends, especially the first-timers: the baby is in, but it will come out, one way or another. Your body knows what to do. You will be just fine, and I can’t wait to meet your new baby.

In Offense of Marriage

Here is a fact: at my age, I am far more likely to be killed by a maniacal hedgehog than I am to get married. My friends, who are well-meaning, but all a little bit scared of me, have gently tried to broach the subject with me. This is what I mean by “gently broach:” they say, “I don’t get it. You seem normal. Why aren’t you married yet?”

Over the years I have tried to formulate an appropriate response. A few things I’ve tried:

• I don’t know
• I’ve always been too busy
• I am allergic to Unity Candles
• It is against the Pirate Code

But here is the truth: it’s just not how I roll. I am not opposed to marriage…..for you. But it’s not my thing. I have loner tendencies, with serious hermit potential. I adore hours of silence strung together without interruption by human noises. I am not awesome at compromise, which I hear marriage entails, and commitment makes me want to throw up. So, needless to say, I was never the girl who was ordering Modern Bride and making a scrapbook of my dream wedding. In fact, I think that the prospect of having to arrange a wedding and reception is a large part of my marriage anathema.

Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy attending weddings. People in love make me happy. I like hearing men and women talking about their weddings. I have all the sympathy for friends who are dealing with the year or so of stress and planning that goes into making the event happen. In my religion, the wedding ceremony itself is a sacrament, and I am totally behind that, too. It’s big stuff. But, to me, it would be slow torture. On a regular day, I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning just to manage the logistics of daily living (things like finding a parking spot, being on time to everything, having enough snacks, etc.) Planning a wedding is nothing but logistics and details, and I am not wired to deal with that unmedicated. I am also not wired to deal with appetizers, flowers, scripture readings, auditioning DJs, invitations, pre cana, licenses, bridesmaid/groomsmen selection, the chicken dance decision, cake, attendant gifts….there is no way. This is not for me.

On the other hand, one never knows. So, just in case I fall in love with someone who also meets my non-negotiable conditions of marriage (he has to live somewhere else and not constantly* bother me) the following will be part of my wedding:

1. There will be a Doritos bar and a nacho cheese fountain. Fact: everyone likes Doritos, and a nacho cheese fountain is a lifelong dream of mine. I can’t worry about whether people want prime rib or chicken, so I figure Doritos are a happy medium. We would have ALL DIFFERENT KINDS of Doritos. And dips. And napkins so nobody gets Dorito powder on their clothes.

2. I will not walk down any aisle, anywhere. At the church, after the processional music is played, I will simply jump up from the front row, yell, “Hi everyone! I’m right here!” and then get on with the thing. If anybody else wants to walk down the aisle, they are welcome to do so. But not me. Also: at the reception, there won’t be any announcement like, “And now…..we present….Mr. and Mrs……!!!!!” No. I will enter my reception the exact same way I enter church every week: sneak in, sneak out and sit in the back.

3. I will not have useless table centerpieces. I have friends who have spent countless hours agonizing about their centerpiece. Mine would be easy: a giant bowl of candy bars. There would definitely be Twix in there, Reese cups, Heath bars, Whatchamacalits, Rolos, Kit Kats…what I am saying is that you would find something in there that you would like. And the table would have to vote on who got to take the centerpiece home based on who did the best job keeping the conversation at the table going. That way, I wouldn’t have to mess around with wandering from table to table, ensuring my guests were having a good time. That would stress me out.

4. No wedding clothes. All women ever do is pick apart your dress and compare it unfavorably with their own. White is not flattering on me. I’d rather see a guy in running clothes than a tux. Making my friends wear matching dresses and shoes is asking an awful lot of them. It is also hard to enjoy a Doritos bar with a nacho cheese fountain if you’re wearing taffeta.

5. Baby Animals. Instead of a slide show at my rehearsal dinner with all of the happy moments of the couple, I will have a slide show of adorable pictures of baby animals. Same goes for my wedding program. Instead of a program, each person will just be handed a picture of a sleeping baby panda.

6. If I ever utter the words, “This is MY DAY,” to anyone, at any time before or during the wedding, they will have my permission to shoot me with a paintball gun from ten feet away. I have long-believed that many divorces occur because the parties were so focused on the wedding, and how magical and special the wedding was going to be, that they forgot to consider how the marriage was going to be. And I feel like marriage really consists of putting up with other people farting.

So that’s it. Totally normal, right?


*constantly = ever

Don't Say This

Listen: I don’t think that I get any more annoyed than anyone else by common grammar mistakes. I get that, as a society, we’re just not going to fix this really impossible to/too/two problem or figure out how to not end sentences with prepositions at. But there are a few things that people regularly do that I would like to stop. Please band with me in letting people know that they should never again say the following:


1. “For all intensive purposes” – I don’t know what “intensive purposes” are, but they do not sound good. I am guessing they are the sort of purposes one would have when one goes to a Henry Rollins concert. Instead, say, “For all intents and purposes,” and then understand that what that really means is, “To the degree that any of us care.”

2. “Irregardless” – You know this isn’t a word, right? You either have regard for something, or you do not have regard for it – and in that case, you would simply say, “regardless.”

3. “It’s very/sort of/pretty unique” - Unique means “one of a kind.” Therefore, something is either one of a kind, or it is not one of a kind. Something cannot be “sort of” one of a kind any more than anyone can be “sort of” pregnant. Nothing can be “so unique” either. Unique is a word that should not be modified ever.

4. “Valentime’s Day” – I do not understand. I never see this word misspelled, but I hear it said with that crazy “m” all the time. And I understand that sometimes things change, e.g., how the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade has become the Macy’s Day Parade (I LOVE Macy’s Day!) but I do not now, nor will I ever understand how a simple Valentine became something that referenced a made-up era. Ah, if only we were still living in Valen Time.

5. “The heighth is the same as the width” – no, it’s not. Because height has a hard “t” at the end. And I know that there are some of you who are going to say, “No, no, that’s a regional thing. We really say it with a ‘th’ where I come from." No. You don’t. So stop.

6. “I literally died laughing” – No, you figuratively died laughing. If you literally died laughing, I would be writing this from your funeral, which would be rude of me.

7. “This use to be alot funner” – sigh. Where do I start? Okay, first, it’s “used to be.” Past tense. Second, it is “a lot.” Two separate words. I am not kidding! Finally, it is “more fun,” not “funner.” Funner, actually, might be a lot more fun to say, but it is still not a word. And it’s not something that used to be a word either. It was never a word, so stop saying it.

8. “This is Ludacris” - Okay, this is just going too far. The only time that you could legitimately say this is if you are introducing the rapper/artist Ludacris to someone, say, at a party. Then, you would expect your friend, Ludacris, to extend his hand and shake. If you want to express that something is so foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing, you would say, “This is ludicrous.” It is simply ludicrous to misspell this word. Also not okay: Ludichrist.

9. “USA! USA! USA! USA!” – Okay, I grant that this one is a little off-topic, but it’s my blog, and I am allowed to write anything I want. Can we please just quit yelling this all the time? If we REALLY want to make ourselves look superior to other countries, we need to yell out Pi to, like, the 11th place. Can you imagine us all yelling that in unison at the Olympics? “3.14159265258!” Or better yet, if we wanted to show pride in our country, we could just start yelling out our Presidents in order. “WASHINGTON! ADAMS! JEFFERSON! MADISON! MONROE! ADAMS! BUT NOT THE ADAMS WE YELLED BEFORE! THIS ONE WAS HIS SON! JACKSON!” and so on and so on.

Okay, that’s all I can think of. Now, I just need to sit back and wait for my mom to correct my grammar and punctuation.

Born to Run

I was raised in a musical house in the 1970s. Because I grew up in the 70s, we had a stereo in the dining room with a turntable and eight-track tape player, and my youth has a soundtrack of Frampton Comes Alive, Earth, Wind and Fire, Commodores, Heart Like a Wheel, JT, and a stack of so many 45’s, I don’t think I ever listened to every one of them.

Of the music of my youth, the song I remember the most, was Springsteen’s Born to Run. And, even though I will always contend that Jungleland is the best song on that album, with She’s the One and Thunder Road coming in second and third, Born to Run is the song I think stands the test of time, and with each passing year, becomes more and more clearly the greatest song ever written.

And let me just say right now that I don’t want to hear from any Beatles purists that I’m wrong. Write your own damn blog. Give me the introductory chord of Born to Run, the chord that sounds like the start of a motorcycle engine, followed by, of all things, the melody being followed by the glockenspiel, any day. Give me Clarence Clemons on the sax. Give me the Spectoresque wall of sound that runs you over and drags you along for the ride. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first time or the five-hundredth time you hear the song, Born to Run takes your breath away.

Rolling Stone magazine listed Born to Run as #21 in its list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, with Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone as their number 1. Rolling Stone magazine was dead wrong. Well, to be fair, I have to admit to a deep and unabiding disinterest in the music of Bob Dylan. I am just going to throw down right now and say that Dylan is for pretentious gits who are misty-eyed about the man’s assholery and intellectualism. Music critics worship Dylan the same way that movie reviewers worship The Bicycle Thief. They worry they won’t have credibility unless they pray at the altar of Dylan, so they do it. Lennon’s Imagine is number 3. Puke and yawn. I want music that I can drink in, store in my bones and then sweat out through my pores. I want music to which you could choreograph a fight sequence, the kind where people are breaking chairs over each others’ heads and knocking teeth out, or run away, or blow your eardrums out. Born to Run fits all of those requirements beautifully.

And, of course, there are the lyrics. I was on a run with my friend Alison a couple weeks ago where we were discussing this very topic, and she stopped running and wistfully shouted, “I want to be Wendy!” Who doesn’t want to be the person who inspires the lyrics, “Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness/I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul?” And forget about Wendy for a second, how about this line: “Baby, this town rips the bones from your back/It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap.” Or this one, my favorite: “Beyond the Palace, hemi-powered drones scream down the boulevard/Girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors/And the boys try to look so hard/The amusement park rises bold and stark/Kids are huddled on the beach in a mist.” You know the next line. That is some imagery, my friends. Who else writes that kind of shit? I’ll tell you: no one. How this song wraps up death, and escape, and youth, and rebellion, and frustration, and hopelessness, and, inexplicably, hope all together into four and a half minutes is a mystery to me, but every word in this song is a masterpiece. Every note. Every chord.

Ultimately, Born to Run is the song of all of us. Of that moment that each of us took a square look at the life we wanted to live, and whether or not we could escape the shackles of the life we were living. So just do me a favor. Take five minutes to take a listen, maybe with fresh ears, or maybe with the appreciation you’ve had for decades, to this song.

Goodbye, 2010!

Welcome to 2011, friends! Since the year is fresh and unformed, I’d just like to take a moment to reflect on the late, great 2010. I will miss you, 2010, and all your kooky midterm elections, apocalyptic weather and hilarious Dancing with the Stars scandals.

Here are a few things that 2010 taught me:

1. “I’d like my life back,” is not a reasonable response to an oil crisis.
2. No matter how irritated you were about the word “whatever,” you did not have it as bad as the Haitians.
3. If someone is brave enough to die for his or her country, most of us are okay with that person being openly gay.
4. Americans still don’t get what the big fucking deal is about soccer. Sorry, World Cup.
5. Surprised kitties are HILARIOUS!
6. LeBron? Kind of a douchebag.
7. Everyone has seen The Roots play somewhere, even if they don’t know it. Hell, we all probably actually know someone who is now or has been in The Roots. Just Google them. You’ll see.
8. I guess…uh….Lindsay Lohan has a drug problem? Or something?
9. As much as we act like our Presidents are taking us directly to hell in a handbasket, the top three most admired men in America: 1) Barack Obama 2) George W. Bush 3) Bill Clinton.
10. Third most admired woman in America? Oprah Winfrey.
11. The people in the NCAA are seriously a bunch of fucking idiots.
12. Americans really only have a tolerance of about 2 hours to hear about disasters in other countries (Haiti, Pakistan, India, Chile) but, by God, if we have to sit on a runway for more than an hour, we consider it tantamount to kidnapping.
13. The jury is still out on whether there should be one space after a period in writing or two. Thanks, Trisha!
14. Regardless of what you think of Julian Assange, we can all agree that he is really ugly.
15. News organizations are biased! Yes! And they will take comments out-of-context to score political points! No, I am totally serious! Sorry you had to find out the hard way, Shirley Sherrod.
16. Although we were royally pissed off at Toyota’s cover-up of their quality control issues, it was pretty cool that their president’s last name is Toyoda.
17. Sometimes it snows on the east coast! And the people of Philadelphia have FINALLY been called out for being the wusses they are! Philly Cheesesteak, indeed!
18. “I’m not a witch,” won’t win you a seat in Congress.
19. If the Apple company sold shit in a can, we would buy it because it would be TOTALLY AWESOME!
20. Dogfighting? Forgivable. Rape? Forgivable. Cheating on Sandra Bullock? Not so damn fast.
21. We don’t want Bret Michaels to die. At least not right now.
22. Nobody is interested in watching a Texas/San Francisco World Series.
23. Somebody we love has spoken to us within the last 24 hours about how we need to sign up for Groupons, like, now.
24. Any fish that gets on the wrong side of Sarah Palin will get its fucking head bashed in. DIE, YOU HALIBUT!
25. You are probably being bullied right now.
26. And you probably have bedbugs.
27. This Facebook thing might just catch on.
28. Many of us are NOT OK with a mosque, ahem, community center near Ground Zero, but we are okay with a strip club, off-track betting kiosk, bar, Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds.
29. We are pretty convinced that all TSA workers are gay and that we are the hottest thing that gay TSA workers have ever seen.
30. Them Arizonians are racist!
31. Sexual harassment in the Jets organization: totally okay!
32. Health care for all has not brought on the apocalypse…..yet…