Infected

My now-not-so-beloved has downloaded a virus onto my laptop. AGAIN. Brought it into work and they said it was fixed. Guess what? It's not.

Now I've got to lug it in again. Grr. (And on my white suit day too (see the comments)).

Outwardly, I've been very calm. I mean, what can you do? Things happen. I do think, however, that JD has finally gotten the message and the reason why I do not want him working (read: playing some stupid computer game) on my computer.

I told him yesterday that I wanted to get him his very own laptop for our anniversary (coming up at the end of August). He said that he hadn't come up with an idea for a gift for me. I said, "You don't understand. That is the gift for me."

Darn it. I should at least get a china cabinet out of all this. This is the one I have my eye on. Isn't it beeyooteeful? And only for the cost of a fertility treatment or two.

***

Work has been insane and I'll be travelling on Sunday for a shiva call (my brother's wife's brother passed away unexpectedly last week) so I may not be posting much in the coming days.

Life Imitates Art?

When I was sick, I watched The Other Boleyn Girl, a guilty pleasure of a book and certainly the movie is a guilty pleasure too. The part where two sisters compete for the same man applies here. Apparently my unconscious brain took a bit of time to process the movie, because I dreamed last night that I encountered a roommate from college owning a boutique in West Virginia and she was living with my boyfriend from high school. And then he kissed me right in front of her! And she was OK with this! (Thus proving, in dream logic, that 1) he should not have broken up with me, and 2) this roommate was a false friend who used me for what I could do for her).

BTW, I'm feeling better now. :)

Karma is an A-hole

Funny coming off the heels of my last post, maybe karma is out to get me. I've lost 3 pounds. How? I just spent the majority of the last 48 hours in the bathroom. Ugh.

After the first 24 hours, I had considered going to the emergency clinic, but was worried that I wouldn't be able to find a bathroom fast enough. I finally found relief after multiple doses of Pepto, cups of tea, a hot shower and A&D (my lifesaver, must buy stock in it).

Insult to injury: we only had that recycled, 1/2-ply, feels-like-rubbing-your-patootie-with-a-broken-piece-of-the-Berlin-Wall toilet paper and it hurt me. A lot. Eff global warming, I need my Charmin.

Spending today at home resting and mainlining Gatorade.

Outraged

I just read this article, Women Overcomes Obesity to Adopt Child, and I am absolutely livid. An overweight woman who has endured infertility and multiple miscarriages is told that she cannot adopt because she is too fat.

"They said I wouldn't really have a chance to adopt the child I wanted
unless I lost the weight," [Melanie] King told the Daily Mail. "I was told because I
wanted to adopt a young child, I needed to be active enough to run around
and look after them.”

Sure, alcoholics and crack addicts are allowed to be parents, and neglectful parents at that, but G-d forbid that a fat person be allowed to have children.

Fat is the only thing that people feel that it's OK to joke about now, and I am just sick of it. From this article to movies like Shallow Hal, Norbit and The Nutty Professor, we loudly proclaim the message that it's OK to make fun of fat people and that fat people are dirty, disgusting and bad. (Yes, I am aware that these movies try to teach a lesson of tolerance and inner beauty, but that lesson is given short shrift in order to answer the immediate demands of making fun of fat people who wear large underwear and break chairs).

Desperate to build her family, Mrs. King embarked on a drastic and dangerous liquid diet. She was able to lose 112 pounds, and thereby become eligible to adopt a child, but at what cost? Who knows what damage her body endured or what the lasting effects of this torture will be?

I too have been told that I would need to lose weight in order to build my family. Not because I am not active enough to keep up with children, but because my clinic's insurance is worried about the possible side effects to anesthesia in obese people. Not because I would be a bad parent, but because an insurance company is more concerned about an amorphous risk. I call this "amorphous" because we are using IUIs, which don't require anesthesia, so these rules are simply there to prevent me, someone with no infertility factors, from being able to determine when and how I will build my family.

As long as I am healthy and active, i.e., blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar are in the normal range and I eat healthfully and exercise regularly, then the only thing that my fat prevents me from doing is wearing designer clothes and competing in the Olympics. My fat should not prevent me from building my family. It's no one else's business but mine.

Open Letter to a New Yoga Teacher

Dear Yelling Stressball,

I attended your class last night with some trepidation. I have been taking similar classes at this center for the past year and have greatly enjoyed the classes. Yet, they have all been under the auspices of the same instructor, Awesome Lady, and I was hesitant to take a class with a different instructor, since, as we all know, WE FEAR CHANGE.

I'm not sure if you were aware, but the meditation class that you taught last night, and indeed, most yoga practices, are considered to be stress relievers, not stress-inducers. If your plan was, in fact, to increase my stress level greatly, then I must wish you a hearty congratulations, because you were amazingly successful. If stress inducement was not actually your aim, might I suggest a different profession? Boot camp drill sergeant, perhaps?

Unfortunately, I don't find myself in need of additional stress at the moment. When I do find myself relaxed for a long period of time, I'll make sure to give you a call. Till then, I'll be skipping your yogic stress classes.

Sincerely,
Jendeis

Vacation?

Please excuse the below which is not well-drafted, whiny and tends to the run-on sentences.

An ongoing issue: JD doesn't have opinions about things. Or maybe he does, but he really doesn't care, so it's basically a lot of, "Well, what do you wanna do?" But when I hear that, I think he really does have an opinion, but he's going with what I want so he can then throw it back at me that we never do what he wants to do.

Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Anyways, because JD has been without an income for a year and doesn't want to spend the money and is not a planner and even though I am a planner, I've been working my arse off, we find ourselves with no vacation plans. This stinks. A whole lot.

I am, however, determined to go on vacation this summer. Just where we go is the real question. Due to JD's issues with pain and his inability to walk for long distances, we can't go anywhere that we'd be sightseeing. So, strike off anywhere new.

I hate that we can't go anywhere new because, in my bring-on-the-parade-of-horribles mind, it means that we will never go anywhere new, never travel anywhere and be stuck at home forever and ever and never go on vacation and I'm just stuck. Plus, I really, ruheaallly need some time off and if I don't get it, I might start having to kill people.

Again, I might be overthinking this.

My parents have a house at the beach, so we may spend a week there, or, we may go to a resort in the mountains that takes our credit card points. I just wish that I didn't have to plan everything and that life was easier. Don't we all?

Enough of the whining! Where do you think we should go?

The Usual

Nothing really exciting going on around here, so I haven't been posting. Here's what I've been doing the past couple of days.

On Sunday, I went to Mel's reading at a local bookstore and got to see some TOOTPU (The Order of the Plastic Uterus, that is, DC area infertiles) gals there and meet Mel's husband, Josh. It's nice to have a face to go with all the stories of the guy who patiently handles Mel's 11 PM anxieties. :)

Monday and Tuesday, I was at an industry conference on leadership training and strategic decision making. A new season of The Biggest Loser was taping at the same hotel. We were just sitting around eating lunch and seeing people with walkie-talkies pass by every couple seconds, then a big bunch of people wearing the show's t-shirts walked in and we finally got it. I didn't get to see Bob or Jillian, but a couple other people did.

Last night, I went over to BFF's house where she made me a fabulous dinner (including cupcakes!) and coffee in exchange for building her Ikea furniture. Not only am I an attorney, I'm also a semi-professional Ikea construction contractor.

Tonight, TOOTPU is gathering for ice cream to see Murgdan while she's on her DC vacation! So excited!

WFMW - Scrolling Blogroll Boxes

I've had my scrolling blogroll boxes on my right sidebar for a while now, and I just love 'em! Wanna make some for your very own?

In Blogger, add an HTML gadget to your sidebar and add the following:

< style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: 5px; OVERFLOW-Y: scroll; WIDTH: 175px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; OVERFLOW: auto; BORDER-TOP: 5px; BORDER-RIGHT: 5px">


< href="http://sellcrazysomeplaceelse.blogspot.com/">Sell Crazy Someplace Else < /a >
< /div >



Take out the spaces in between the greater than and less than signs. (I just had to do that to get the code to show up on my screen).

Feel free to work around with the different measurements and alignments to find something that works for you!

This post is for the Works for Me Wednesdays blog carnival at We Are THAT Family.

I'm a Copier

"First, Madonna had one. Then Angelina had one. Now, Bruno has one."

Yeah, I'm a copier, completely following Leah and her "Leah understands..." post.

Since I was certain that I would not garner enough finds with "Jendeis," I searched with "Jen understands."

Jen understands how to create a brand from the top down...
Because grass-roots organizing never works. Oh, except for that pesky little civil rights movement in the 50s. Oh, and women's lib, Earth Day, and RESOLVE.

Jen understands the emotional journey we all travel, while offering hard facts to help overcome expected challenges.
Yes, I feel your pain. Additionally, did you know that Leo Gerstenzang was the inventor of the Q-tip?

Jen understands you "use it or lose it" and that fitness of any kind, at any level, is truly medicine to our bodies.
Unfortunately, I don't think I ever had it to lose it, but yes, fitness is important for our bodies and minds.

Jen understands that selling your home can be a stressful and emotional process.
Why not add in buying a new home, moving, having your car die and getting married in addition to the selling part? Just get all the stress in at once.

Jen understands the importance of investing in our communities to enhance our economy and our quality of life.
That's why Jen wants to move, so she can invest in a community she wants to be in, rather than in NoVA.

Jen understands the holistic approach the average athlete needs.
Sorry, I can only come up with dirty answers to this one.

Jen understands the composition of the world is not always black and white, but RED, the color of flame.
"She dreams in color, she dreams in red. Can't find a better man..."

Jen understands that there is satisfaction in clearing, but it can also be emotionally charged and draining at times...
For example, sometimes someone has a 3-foot broken trophy that he refuses to get rid of for like 4 years. Not like this is personal, I probably just heard that somewhere.

Jen understands the likely misapprehensions that Hector has right now regarding this pneumonia.
Luckily, she knows other pneumonias that she can introduce him to.

Jen understands little of this as it seems to her that honor asks the impossible.
Not really. Only two things: "Justice, justice, shall you pursue" and "Truth, even unto its innermost parts."

Love

[JD]: What are you doing?

[Jendeis]: I'm putting all the recipes that I've bookmarked into an online database with their source material, so that even if the recipes are deleted, I'll still have the recipes and who I got them from.

[JD, deadpan]: Wow, welcome to Lame.

We laughed for about 5 full minutes.

Holiday Weekend

The weekend was fine overall. Some of the highlights/notables follow:

-I'm not a huge fan of driving over bridges. I have this fear that I will go crazy and drive off the side of the bridge. Yes, I'm crazy. Anyways, based on where we went through the E-Z Pass lane, I had to drive on the one lane of the westbound bridge that was going eastbound. AAAHHH! I was pretty nervous, but doing OK with my breathing exercises and JD saying, "You're OK. You're OK. You're OK." Well, I was OK until my eyes started tearing up, I got sunscreen in my eyes and was blinded. I started screaming, "I can't see! I can't see!" JD grabbed the wheel and ripped off his shirt so that I could use it to wipe my eyes. Thank G-D he was there. I would've crashed into oncoming traffic or off the bridge otherwise.

-About 15 minutes after the bridge fiasco, The Boy goes crazy and starts running all over the car. JD and I are both "What the heck?!" The Boy jumps onto my lap and, as JD pulls him back over to his own lap, The Boy proceeds to poop on my left leg, the steering wheel, my right leg, the gear shift and JD's legs. Ew. Ewww. Ewwwww!!!! We were able to stop at a gas station a couple of miles down the road and clean up the car and ourselves.

-Dr. Chai was content to let me stay off the drugs while I felt that I was responding rationally and this weekend was really my test of that. Big FAIL. I was so filled with anxiety on Thursday that my mother said that she could actually see me shaking with stress. I felt like I was vibrating. After bursting into tears on Friday morning because my open suitcase had spilled out onto the floor (I thought it was closed when I moved it), I decided, along with the counsel of family and BFF, to get back on the drugs. The suitcase incident was followed by worry that BFF's boyfriend didn't like me because there weren't enough beds at the beach place and an incident with my mother because I felt that she liked everyone else better than me. It's not all in my head; what I mean is, there are actual examples I can point to, to show why I start thinking in a certain way, it's just that my head misinterprets and misjudges and just makes everything worse. My mother and I have talked about it and I feel better now. I am back on the drugs now and hoping for "normal" reactions soon.

-We had lots of wonderful things to eat all weekend. I read a lot. We got to see real fireworks! Not the lame-o ones that JD, wannabe pyro, sets off at inappropriately late hours, angering the neighbors, but a government-sponsored fireworks display! Yay!

-I don't feel like I was able to relax enough, but am hoping to do so soon.