Bettie Bookish

Beauty Break y

This moment brought to you by the new Sephora catalog:

HSH: What the hell?

BB: Hot this spring.

HSH: Chemical burn, by Sephora.

BB: Look at my eye.

HSH: The hottest look is "Bad Boyfriend."

HSH: I'm 4-years old.

BB: You look so great. I would have thought you were in preschool!

Happy Valen Times 2008

Happiness to all of you. May you all be positively swarmed with love and affection. I know I am.

This morning, my HSH gave me a box of Lindt truffles. We looked at the nutritional information (stupidstupidstupid) and declared that - since we are both attempting to lose some weight - the most prudent thing for us to do is to share a single truffle per day.

Of course, on Sunday, if I choose to toast the Little Easter again, all bets are off. ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, CHUNKY.

In answer to Rev. Dr. Mom's questions/comments:
We're in the Diocese of Albany, NY. Not exactly a bastion of Northeastern Liberal Anglicanism.

I would actually love some tips for researching churches and/or rectors.

As for The Little Church that Could, they actually do have a little basket of toys in the back of the church and some books for keeping visiting grandchildren (or great-grandchildren) quiet. And everyone is always very supportive of the girls' presence, telling them how good they were during the service.

Our little church in Florida had very few kids and no programming for kids, and that was fine for Bee because she was so little. And for Posey, I would be happy to stay at the little church and just accept that I can't sit through service.

But Bee is very much at an age where I think it's becoming important for her to have a peer group at church. And that will only become more important as time goes on.

And ocme to think of it, I wouldn't mind having a peer group, myself.

I'll definitely take The Rev. Dr. Mom's advice about asking questions if we try out the new church.

Thieves afoot

This morning, I was struggling to find my morning medicine in the cabinet where we keep it. It's always a challenge, because the cabinets are ridiculously high normal height, and I am just a smidge too tall to be eligible for acceptance into the Lullaby League.

HSH came to my rescue and foraged in the cabinet for me, then declared, "I think someone must have broken into the house and stolen your pills."

"Yes - thieves who were desperate to feel somewhat less anxious 30 days from now."

How Deep Is Your Love?

Several small things and one big thing. First, the big thing.

Love Without Boundaries is competing in the Facebook cause challenge. For those unfamiliar with the organization, you can read more here. This group is staffed completely by volunteers and works 24-hours a day 7-days a week to improve the lives of children in Chinese orphanages by providing medical care, formula and other nutrition, foster care training and education to children who may never be adopted. I cannot say enough about the amazing work this group does.

Right now, they are running neck-and-neck with Tibetan Freedom Movement and Fight Poverty. Clearly, those are both worthy organizations.

I am going to be joining and donating to LWB, and I invite you to do the same. The organization that receives the most new donations of at least $10 will receive an award of $50,000. Love Without Boundaries plans to spend the money on 10 children who need heart surgery.

Seriously - for $10 you can save 10 kids' lives. What are you waiting for?

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/view_cause/51591

Little Things

When we were in Boston, I went to Lila's salon sorceress for a haircut, and it is fabulous. Photos? No, you'll have to trust me on this one.

As we were leaving, the haircut assistant gave me a list of the products that were used in my hair, including the shampoo, conditioner and leave-in conditioner, something shinifying, something curlifying, something holdifying.

My HSH looked at the list and said: Is this covered by insurance?

Teachers' Pet

I finally got my grades for my first semester back in school in 15 years, and I got two solid B+es. And while I ordinarily would be flagellating myself for not achieving straight A's, in this instance - when the courses in question were a science class and a social science course on the Middle East - I'll take it.

This semester proves to be as challenging, although a little closer to my comfort zone. One class is about the health care system in America, and the equity or inequity thereof. I am reading a heart-wrenching book called "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." I want to blame someone.

I'm also taking a fiction writing seminar with a professor whom I have not yet met.

Partay

We attended a party last weekend where the primary activity was playing This Game. It was lots of fun, although I didn't get up and perform. I may have to get a copy for home so I can practice enough to go out in the world and represent.

The best Christmas ever

I probably wrote that last year, too, but whatever.

Here's a quick rundown:

Best gift given: Krups Coffee Grinder & Brewer for HSH because he hates our coffee. And because I am the prototypical 1950s housewife, I find that equivalent to his hating my housekeeping skills or blowjobs. Because I'm a lady like that.

Best gift received: A small Guan Yin, which makes me think of taking both of my daughters to the Six Banyan Tree Temple for a blessing, one of which was cut short by a cell phone call received by the monk.

Two other amazing gifts: A phone call received from Xerxes before we had a chance to call him. The Soundtrack to Office Space, worth "Damn It's Good to Be a Gangsta," alone.

Best food consumed: Vegetarian lasagna on Christmas day.

Runners-Up for best food consumed: Trader Joe's truffles and Lila's chocolate chip cookies.

Best drink consumed: Tempranillo brought by Lila (help  me out here with the vintner, L), around which she tied beautiful red and green ribbon. Edited to add: It wasn't tempranillo - it was rioja. With Pure Spanish Character. (Thanks, Lila.)

Best feat of engineering and persistence: Four adults (two of them Ivy leaguers) assembling a kitchen playset at midnight Christmas Eve. I was not one of the Ivy Leaguers. But I was sharing the Tempranillo with one of them.

Worst gift decision: Buying a T-shirt online.

Best gift decision: Buying Superbad for my brother from Amazon, and then having to buy it again because it had not arrived in time. Special gift for me - Cash Back!

Bee's favorite gift: Real makeup from Grandma.

Posey's favorite gift: Four consecutive days at home with four adults = four consecutive days of lap sitting and death defying for an audience.

Photos soon.

Where do I begin?

My husband, JC, is a top-flight mixmaster.

This weekend, as we worked together painting our entry, stairway, hallway and living room, he treated me to the sounds of a lovely mix CD* he originally made for the party we threw ourselves before leaving Florida.

*Or, as I will call such items until the day I die, a "mix tape," even though I know full well the medium isn't a cassette tape. Likewise, I have been looking for a good yoga "video," despite the fact that I don't even own a VHS player, and the yoga product I buy will be a DVD. I am old. I'm going to go put on my dungarees now and watch a commercial for vaginal dryness.

This CD he made is a thing of beauty. My favorite juxtaposition is (withhold judgement and remember this CD was made for a pretty mass audience) Everclear's "I Can't Smile" ("I don't know what's happened to me, I. Can't. Smile.") with James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing" ("Dance, and you'll feel better!").

I love that man. My husband, that is, not James Brown.

And he must love me, too, particularly considering what an utter nut I've been over the past several weeks of quitting one medication, starting another, and being generally disagreeable. Or totally agreeable! Or a raging maniac! Or your best friend!

That's possibly an exaggeration of my actual behavior. But it aptly describes my internal landscape.

I share this, not because I think it's a real riveting scroll, but because I know so many people who live on antidepressants, and so many of them spend a lot of time trying to find just the right medication, just the right dosage, and just the right lifestyle/therapeutic complements to the pharmaceuticals.

With all that confusion - and so unfair to further confuse those of us seeking mental health drugs - maybe it helps to share experiences.

The background: I began taking Paxil two years ago after a radical hysterectomy (it helps with hot flashes, you see) and chemotherapy (it also helps with existential dread.)

After being on it for just a short time, I realized that something was missing. Something big - something that usually took up a fair amount of both my waking and sleeping hours: Fear.

You have to understand that I come from a family that mixed fear in my baby formula with Karo syrup. I had so much fear going on that I had ceased to identify it as fear, and I just called it being human.

Hello, we're the Hummingbirds, HOLYFUCKTRAGEDYSTALKSALLOFUS would you like some tea?

To be without fear was such a novel and beautiful experience that it would have made me cry - except that NOTHING made me cry anymore.

Paxil smoothed my psyche into a slippery, impenetrable little ball of wax.

Maybe it smoothed the edges too well. My little marble of a soul was so slick it couldn't gain enough traction too roll.

The only thing that remotely bothered me was the 20 pounds I put on in the year after starting the drug. And although my weight evened out, I couldn't seem to drop any.

I know that any conversation about female weight is loaded with very strong personal feelings. No, 20 pounds is not a lot. But in my case, it was also a 20 percent weight gain. One-fifth more of me. I went up 2 or 3 sizes in a year. This, from a body that had stayed the same size for the previous 15 years. And did I mention that this fucking traitor of a body had also gotten cancer and lost all its hair? It was already On Notice.

Cancer and alopecia, I can take. But 20 pounds?

And that is why I decided to change to a different medication that doesn't have a reputation for weight gain as a side effect.

But after a few weeks on the new med, all those little needles of anxiety that used to prick me throughout the day and wake me up at night have started to return. Last night, I woke up at 1:30 -afraid. Not of anything specific. But I turned on lights to walk through my house. I was nervous about looking in the direction of uncurtained windows. And I did not get back to sleep until 4:30, because every time I closed my eyes, I started to think about all the things in life that could Go Wrong.

And then there is the several weeks of unexpected crying fits, irritability, and general feeling that, no, I'm not depressed - I'm pissed off.

I've decided to go back to my sweet friend Paxil, who smooths my hair and tells me, "THAT'S not something to worry about. Here, eat this donut."

"M-kay," I reply with my mouth full of krueller. "I love you, Paxil."

This experience does, however, raise for me the question of my identity, and how easily that identity can be altered.

Sure, I may have an eternal soul that comprises the bare essentials of Me - the Me that God knows and loves (and only God knows why God loves).

But on a practical, everyday level, Who I Am seems to be made up of What I Do, What I Think and How I Feel. And all three of those components are completely vulnerable to What I'm Taking.

Where does the medication end and I begin?

Maybe the Me is evident in the decision to switch medications again, knowing that, although I will feel less, I also will fear less.

I've got to get back to Paxil soon so this won't bother me anymore.

Where my Jungians at?

I had a dream last night that my husband and I robbed a bank. Twice.

It was his idea, and apparently the scheme was foolproof. So foolproof that we accomplished it twice. At the same bank.

I love my husband. He's really smart.

CAN I CALL IT A NA-NA?

Yesterday was big. In the morning, I had another followup appointment with my ladydoctor, who pronounced that everything looks peachy. You know that makes a girl feel proud when someone says her (per husband's request, I am not going to call it a hoo-ha) "looks great, REALLY GREAT - the best I've seen it."

He also said that, even with all the reconstruction, it's obviously "functional."

Flatterer. Now you're just trying to make me blush.

After my appointment, I picked up Buttercup and raced to my mother's house so I could meet the charity truck and make another donation.

Just so that you can understand what it has meant to clear my mother's house, let me explain to you the layers of archaeology that I had to accomplish.

First, I removed at least 10 bags of trash per room - and these were big, black lawn bags of trash. I had to have thrown out somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-150 bags of trash. And that was just the OBVIOUS trash. The trash that could be ascertiained without any effort.

Then I had to sort through every purse Mom had owned since she was 25 - all of them still full of stuff. And no, I couldn't just toss them, because among the gas receipts and napkins and disintegrated latex nurse gloves, I would find things like her baptismal certificate, a wedding ring, an original photo of my grandmother as a child.

And I've just discovered that I can't even go further in describing the work, because even putting it in writing is too grueling.

I also am struggling against the feeling that my brother could have done more. Or, indeed, anything. I need to let go of that, because it will only get in the way.

I just wish I hadn't been the one who had to look at EVERY piece of paper in the house. I wish that, when I watched the man close the truck door on the living room sofas that had been in our house since I was five, I wish I hadn't been alone watching it go.

Wilma and Bettie

No, we were not in the path of this latest absurd storm. Wilma, indeed.

My New York Realtor called me yesterday while I was shopping for materials for Buttercup's Halloween costume. Buttercup wants to dress as one of our dogs. I will post photos.

My Realtor wanted to know if we were in harm's way. She has no concept of the geography of Florida. That's OK - I probably couldn't point to her part of New York on an unlabelled map.

Yes - we are planning to move to New York. We're looking for acreage. We're going to farm Christmas trees and hope. We're going to freeze our heinders off in the winter and wonder what the hell we were thinking, and we will remind ourselves that we were thinking about spring, summer and autumn, which together last about as long as winter.

We are looking at homes in villages. Villages! You have no idea how beautiful that word is to me.

You should know that I am married to George Bailey - actually the Bizarro George Bailey. He has spent his life trying to get INTO Bedford Falls.

Come March, when the permafrost turns to mud, he and I will pack the younguns in the wagon and strike out for his Bedford Falls. We have fallen in love with a house, and will talk soon to a lender to find out if there is any hope of making an offer on it sooner than our move.

(***If you are my New York Realtor and you're reading this, please note that the language I use - "fallen in love" is just literary hyperbole. We could take it or leave it. We're not that excited. Really.***)

The one difficulty with this decision has been our son, who will turn 17 in a couple of weeks. He is ambivalent about the prospect of moving. He has threatened to stay behind with friends. I'm not sure how this will shake out.

I do know that I'm going to mention the necessity of buying him a 4-wheeler so he can survery the Christmas trees on the back nine.