Facebook: I just can't quit you.

What's so great about Facebook anyway?

Um, besides, EVERYTHING. 

(Here's where I admit to having an unhealthy love for Facebook.  Whatever, being a stay-at-home mom can be really boring sometimes.  Seriously, do you know how  hard it is to lose at Connect Four?  And how many pairs of Superman underwear can I fold in a day anyway?)

Here are a few of my favorite things about the Book of Faces:

1) I am ALWAYS up on current events.

Anything major that happens in the world, I know my news feed will light up like a Christmas tree with post after post about it.  Did *YOU* know that Osama bin Laden is dead?  Oh yeah, he totally is.  Not only was I able to rely on my Facebook newsfeed for this information, but I was able to enjoy relevant quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and Mark Twain, each of whom had the foresight to offer his wisdom on this very event long ago.  Now that's some good PR.

2) I NEVER need to watch the weather.

Want to know what the weather's like?  Don't sit and wait for weather.com's page to load.  CHECK FACEBOOK.  Guaranteed that 17% of your friends are commenting about the weather.  It's hot/it's cold/it's windy/it's raining/it's hailing or sleeting (bet your bottom dollar I know the difference), oh my God it's a FUCKING RAINBOW (wait for obligatory comment about finding the pot of gold).  This past winter, I rarely watched the weather because I always had Facebook to let me know that IT'S GOING TO SNOW 17 FEET OF SNOW, WAY MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE ANYWHERE WILL EVER UNDERSTAND, AND WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.  Thank you, Facebook.  Now I can go buy my milk and bread and eggs as required by law.

3) The hearts.

Oh, you know.  <3  See, means nothing here.  In fact, you probably think I just made some boobies.  Facebook takes the boobies and turns them into hearts, just like I prayed would happen when I was 12.  HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

4) The STALKING.

Now, maybe dudes are normal and they don't do stuff like this.  But girls know that the reason Facebook exists is so you can look up your ex-boyfriends, call your best friend, and tear him to pieces.  EVEN IF HE'S A FRIGGIN' DOCTOR AND HIS WIFE LOOKS LIKE A MODEL.  165 pictures of your honeymoon?  Don't mind if I do.  Wow, his wife REALLY needs to put on some weight.  And, HELLO, if God had meant for our eyebrows to be plucked out and then drawn in with pencils, he would have adorned our hands with tweezers instead of fingers.  It's important to note here that you MUST keep your own  Facebook page on total and complete lock-down so that no one can ever do this back to you.  Besides, you're perfect and wonderful and wasn't it his loss anyway, so what-the-eff-ever. 

5) The blatant misuse of the exclamation point.

Confession time:  my opinion of you diminishes 10 points for every cluster of exclamation points you post.  I will begrudgingly admit that there are times when A SINGLE EXCLAMATION POINT is warranted.  But this: !!!!!!! is just absurd.  Let's cut that shit out.  And, while we're on it, it's 'are', not 'r'.  If typing the two extra letters really wastes that much of your time, you MIGHT want to take some typing lessons. 

6) The STATUS UPDATES.

I love me some status updates.  I love reading them, I love writing them, I love commenting on them.  I. LOVE. THEM.  I have learned more about people in high school over two years of status updates than I did sitting next to them in the cafeteria for 4 years.  I know who votes democrat, who votes republican, and who couldn't tell you the difference between the two.  The very best of the status updates are the uber-dramatic ones.  You know, "So-and-so JUST IS."  It's the Facebook equivalent of sulking into a room, dropping into a chair, and sighing as loudly as you can.  It's passive-aggressiveness at it's very best. AND I LOVE IT.

Now, the OCD side of me is greatly disturbed by the thought of ending a list at six items rather than 10, and I would have more to say, except, well...

I have this totally awesome status update to post...




pst...Check out the doo-hickey on the right to take you to the Playing House Facebook page where you can become a fan and follow my totally awesome status updates.
   

Dave Does Easter

Wouldn't it be funny if the first Easter fell on April 1st?

Jesus would be all like, "Hey, it's me, Jesus. I'm back."

And everyone would stop biting the heads off of their chocolate bunnies and be all like, "OMG! Jesus, you totally rose from the dead!  Awesome!"

And then he'd be all like, "April Fools! Hahahaha, I gotcha. Hahahaha, you should see your faces, you TOTALLY thought I was Jesus!"

And the people would be like, "Wait.  WAIT.  You mean, you're not the Lord our Savior? This isn't a miracle?"

And he'd be all like, "Yeah, no. Sorry, man. I'm Dave. I get the whole 'Did anyone ever tell you you look like Jesus?' thing a lot, so I thought it'd be funny to just...you know..."

And then there would this weird, uncomfortable silence.

And then Dave would be like, "Ummm, yeah.  So, I think I'm gonna go."

Then there would be an angry mob and everyone would be PISSED at Dave, so pissed in fact that they would gather all the Easter eggs for the Easter egg hunt and throw them all at Dave.

And then the Easter egg hunt would have to be cancelled and that would NOT be funny at all. So I guess it's good that the first Easter didn't actually fall on April Fool's Day.

GAAAH! Nature!

I don't do nature.

Wait...

Scratch that.

I do pretty nature.  Like sunsets and sunrises and moons and stars and trees and flowers and beaches and oceans and mountains and stuff. 

And weather. 

I LOVE WEATHER. 

I DO NOT, however, do gross, icky nature.

I'm talking dirt, bugs, camping, fungi (I'm looking at you, mushrooms), and, with all due respect to the ones that could eat me (which I believe to be many; like, way, WAY more than other people assume), most animals.

That's right, I said it. 

I'm NOT an animal girl.

I was never the little girl with the horse/puppy/kitten folder in her Trapper Keeper.  My folders were blue.  Or red.  Or green.  MAYBE with a rainbow here or there. 

But no butterflies.  No bunnies.  No unicorns.

NEVER unicorns.

It's not like I've never TRIED to like animals.  I have. 

There was my friend Matt's cat, who was pretty okay.  Except that Matt would regularly stop our phone conversations to announce that the cat was staring at his neck and was probably plotting to kill him.

And then there was the night the cat brought a mouse into the house and left it at our feet.

ALL SET WITH THE CATS, THANKS.

There was also my friend Sascha's dog, Bert.  I kinda dug Bert.  He was all big and sweet and tried really hard to be protective.  We'd come in and she'd tell him, "Go check the house, Bert!" and Bert would proudly trot from the back door to the front to give us the all-clear. 

Bert and I had a sort of understanding.  It went like this:

Me:  Bert, you're stinky.  It's not your fault; it's just because you're a dog and sometimes dogs smell like dogs.  No judgement.  Please don't eat me.
Bert:  We're cool.  I will not lick you, or jump on you, or eat you.  Now give me a french fry. 

In fact, my relationship with Bert reached a really great place.  I realized this one night when Sascha and I were leaving her house.  Always the gentleman, Bert saw us to the door. 

"Bye, Bert," Sascha called to him.  "I love ya!"

"Bye, Bert," I said, and then I paused.  I felt like I should say something more.  But I didn't love Bert, and I couldn't bring myself to lie to him by saying that I did. 

"I don't love you, Bert," I admitted.  "But I like you a lot." 

I like to think that Bert respected my honesty, my refusal to lead him on and let him think I cared for him more than I actually did.  He played it cool; he trotted happily away to go do whatever it is dogs do on a Saturday night.

But Bert was the exception to the rule.  And that was years ago. 

Now I have my own home, free of pet hair.  And pet smells.  And pet bills.

I have kids.  POTTY TRAINED KIDS.

Kids who, thankfully, are happy with fish.

Even if all of our fish are now dead.  Flushed back to the ocean.  Back to nature.

WHERE THEY BELONG.

A Tale of Two Annas

Good People of the Internets:

I need your help. 

It would appear I've gotten myself in a bit of a situation (not to be confused with THE Situation, which would just be gross and probably require a hefty dose of antibiotics and some sort of antifungal cream).

Here's the problem.

Every week, I go to the grocery store on the same day, at the same time, my super-duper, organized-by-aisle-for-maximum-efficiency list in hand.  I play it like a race, trying to be beat my own best time each week.  My child-free time is limited and I hate wasting it standing in the produce aisle smelling melons.

SHUT IT.

So a few months ago, I was engaged in my regular race through Stop and Shop when I ran into a woman I know.

Or, at least, I was fairly certain I knew her. 

I was about 85% sure she was possibly Anna, one of my Facebook friends, sister of an old, dear friend from high school.

She looked A LOT like Anna, who I haven't seen in person in many years. 

At first, it was super casual.  Just a smile, a friendly hello.

Then, one day, our relationship escalated to Chit-Chat.  This is really difficult when you're only 85% sure you know the person you're trying to chit-chat with. 

I tried to keep the conversation to only safe topics: the weather, the holidays, the snow, the weather.  But eventually you run out of ways to talk about the snow, even here in New England.  So I went with the next safest thing, thinking I could feel this woman out to see if she was Actually Anna.

"So," I began, "How's your family?" 

"Great," was all I got.  Shit.

I would come home from the supermarket, log in to Facebook, and head to Anna's profile and look at her pictures.

Did I mention she looked A LOT like Actual Anna?  I was still about 75% sure that she *was* Anna.  But, to be safe, I started to avoid her in the market.  I would see her in one aisle and duck down another.  I was out of things to say that wouldn't give away the fact that I wasn't sure I even knew who she was.

This worked great for a few weeks.

Until the day that I hurriedly turned the corner down the chips aisle.  There was Possibly Anna, talking to 3 other women.  I had no choice but to continue down the aisle; there would be hell to pay if I didn't come home with pretzel sticks and I sure as shit wasn't going to jeopardize my record-breaking time just because of a potentially awkward situation.  As I made my way past them, I smiled at Possibly Anna.

"Oh, hi!" one of her friends said enthusiastically, in a way that meant one of three things: she was really lonely and eager to meet new people, she was on some seriously kick-ass happy pills, or she thought she knew me.

And while my confidence that Possibly Anna was Actual Anna had dropped to 70%, I was 100% sure that I DID. NOT. KNOW. THIS. WOMAN.

So I gave her a confused 'hi' and scurried away.

Things had clearly taken a drastic turn.  It was time to cut the shit and get down to the nitty gritty.  But since I couldn't muster the courage to ask her, "Are you a good witch Actual Anna or a bad witch Possibly Anna?", I had to resort to a sneakier tactic.

This week, I sought out Possibly Anna.  I watched for her down each aisle, and when I finally found her near the toilet paper, I headed her way and quickly scoped the contents of her cart for my in.

Go-gurt.  Bingo.

Four years of preschool pick-ups have left me well-equipped to start any conversation about any child-related topic with any mommy in the whole wide world.  I started in. 

Me: "Blahblahblah *kids* blahblahblah *crazy* blahblahblah *school*."

Possibly Anna: "I know, right?  My daughter's the same way."

Me:  "How old is your daughter?"

Possibly Anna:  "Second grade."

And it's official.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS.

Actual Anna doesn't have a daughter; she doesn't have a second grader; and she would never give 'SECOND GRADE' as an answer to a question about AGE.

I extricated myself from the conversation as seamlessly as I could, finished my shopping, and left.

That was this past Monday.  I know I'm going to see her, this Stranger Anna, next Monday.

OMG, WHAT DO I DO NOW?

It feels a little weird to keep faking it with this Stranger Anna. 

But I can't really walk up to her now, after all these weeks, and say, "Excuse me, but WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"

And, even more troubling, who in God's name does she think *I* am?

So, lay it on me, dear reader.  What's an identity-challenged grocery shopper to do?

Your Hometown

I drive without purpose, without a destination. 

I can lose myself in this town, in its streets, because I know them all by heart.   I open the windows, turn up the radio, turn off my mind, and just drive.

This is my hometown. 

There is no street not stained with my youth, my past.  The ghost of my younger self lingers around each corner. 

I drive by the house I grew up in.  The outside looks nothing like the home I knew, but when I close my eyes I'm able to walk through the heavy front door and up the stairs, into my bedroom, which smells like fresh air and perfume and hairspray.  My fingertips can mentally trip over things of significance:  pictures of friends stuck to the mirror, stacks of tapes and cds next to the radio, the phone on the nightstand with its knotted pink cord that I twist late at night, covers pulled up over my head as I whisper into the receiver while outside the night slips into early morning.  I can lie on the bed and see the familiar swirls on the ceiling.  I can look out the window, watching, waiting for headlights in the driveway. 

But I don't live here anymore.  So I turn my car around to go. 

At the corner of my street stands a girl I know to be 17.  It's early morning and she's waiting for the bus.  It's April, but it's cold.  She's not wearing a hat or gloves or even socks, because she's too cool for that. She hasn't bothered to zip her coat.  She's got her walkman and it's playing November Rain on repeat.  She's thin and pale and doesn't sleep much anymore.  She's taken to burning bridges; she's  about to implode. 

But she doesn't know that yet.  She only knows that the bus is late.

I want to scream at her to zip up her damn coat.  I want to pull her into my warm car and tell her to stay home from school today.  But I can see the bus coming up over the hill and I know she needs to get on it. 

So I leave her there. 

I drive up the main street in town, past the high school.  Just up the road is the library, where, if I were to go in, the librarian would greet me by name. She would smile at my sons. But she would not see what I see, a girl out front with long hair wearing a flannel shirt.  She's slipping her hand into that of the boy sitting next to her.  It's fall; the day is cold and brisk and gray.  But she is smiling, singing Van Morrison for him. He's looking at her and she feels warm.  These two are sure of everything.  They are still in love.

It's a good place to leave them.

The road continues through the center of town.  I'm stopped at the light outside of a bridal shop.  A young woman comes floating out of the shop, gown in hand, breathlessly gushing to the saleswoman about her impending honeymoon.  She cradles that dress like a baby as she guides it into the back of her car.  She's rushing, busy hanging up her veil on a small black hook in the back seat before flying off to tie up a thousand lose ends.  She is 26 and high on the excitement of everything that's about to unfold.  As I watch her I try to remember what mattered to her then, what she thought was important before her sons were born.

Because, for the life of me, I can't remember.

She's in her car now, and she's driving away from me.  I'd like to tell her to slow down, to not giggle nervously through her first dance with her husband, chattering away a moment she'll never get back.  I'd like to tell her that the day is going to go too fast, but even if I could say these things, she would not listen.

Just as I'm sure, somewhere, there is an older version of me driving these streets, with the windows down and the radio on.  She's watching me at 36 stride into a local bar, meeting friends for beer and trivia.  Maybe she's yelling to me to be careful. Maybe she's whispering to hold on to anything I can while it's still there to be held.

But it doesn't matter, because I've already passed her, taken my seat at the table, and ordered a drink.

I cannot hear her. 

And so she shakes her head and leaves me there, crossing over the town line as she goes home.

Denial: A Baby Story

The bathroom was small and I was pretty sure I was never leaving it.

The woman on the other side of the door knocked. 

"Are you okay?  Don't have the baby in there!" she chirped.

FUCKING BITCH, I thought to myself, why THE HELL does she KEEP SAYING THAT?

"I'll be right out," I finally managed to say, although I was certain by then that it was a lie.  Leaving the bathroom was going to involve pulling up my pants AND washing my hands.  I couldn't remember how to do either.  I could only lean against the wall, close my eyes, and give myself over to the pain.

Clearly, I was very sick.

Which is why I was at the hospital.  I was definitely NOT there to have my baby.

Even if it was February 14th. 

My due date.

I had been to the Labor and Delivery floor once before, 3 months earlier, with regular contractions that landed me on bed rest.  Months went by and the baby stayed put.  At my 38 week appointment, my doctor told me, "You've already done the work of early labor; you can't dilate much further without being in active labor.  I'll probably be seeing you within 48 hours."

The next week, she told me the same thing. 

At my final appointment, I told her I thought she had my dates wrong and that this boy was probably going to be born sometime in June; he'd be the first baby born at 56 weeks gestation.  We scheduled an induction for the following week.

I went home to eat as many Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as possible while I could still blame it on the baby.

So when I found myself waddling up to the woman at the desk outside of the Labor and Delivery floor, I tried to explain my situation to her.  No, no, I wasn't there to have my baby.  I was there because I had come down with a terrible stomach bug and I was concerned about the baby.  I was there to make sure he was okay. 

She asked me for my insurance card.

I asked her where the bathroom was.

"Try to breathe through it," was her super-helpful suggestion. 

"It's not a contraction," I insisted, breathing deeply and leaning forward in my chair to rest my head on her desk. 

"Mmmm-hmmm," she replied, her nails tap-tapping on her keyboard.

"Where is the bathroom?" I asked her again when the pain had eased.

She looked at my husband.  "And are you the primary insurance holder?"

BITCHBITCHBITCH, ohmygod, bathroombathroombathroomBITCHISGOINGTOBESOSORRYbathroombathroombathroom. 

I stood up.  I was an adult.  I could find my own damn bathroom.  She could keep her PRECIOUS, TOP-SECRET, CLASSIFIED BATHROOM INFORMATION, I didn't need her.  If I had to, I would make the 30 minute drive home to use the bathroom.  At least there I knew where they were.
  
"Wait," she called after me as I walked away, "we're not done here!"

 And so it was that I found myself in the tiny bathroom, uncertain of how to get myself out and wanting to punch The Bitch in the face as she parked herself outside of the door and waited, pen and form in hand.

She knocked again.  "Do you  need me to get a nurse?"

FUUUUUCCCCKKKK.  I needed her to GO.  THE.  FUCK.  AWAY. 

Now, in my memory, what I said was, "No, thank you."

However.

My husband tells me I said no such thing.

In fact, according to him, there were no actual words, just some moaning, groaning, and assorted other noises that I SWORE I was never going to make, back when I naively thought that I would be in a state of mind to control such a thing.

But then, an angel appeared.

She was a nurse.  While I had finally found a moment of clarity in which to coordinate the pulling-up of the pants, it didn't last long enough for me figure out the hand washing.  My nurse, however, was an EXPERT hand washer.

I decided I loved her. 

When I finally emerged from the bathroom, The Bitch shoved a form in my face.  I scribbled my name and bit my tongue to keep from telling her what she could do with her form and her bathroom and her insistence that I was in labor when I was so obviously ill. 

I was immediately hooked up to a monitor to see if I was contracting. 

"No, no, it's a stomach bug," I told anyone who would listen.

The monitors, however, told a different story.  The contractions were piggy-backing; two 90-second surges in a row with a minute of relief before the next set of two began. 

Next, they examined me.

"Well," said my new BFF, the nurse.  "Your stomach bug has you at 8, almost 9 centimeters.  Did you WANT an unmedicated birth?"

Holy shit, I thought.

The Bitch was right. 

I am totally having a baby.

I asked for an epidural.

And while I waited for that, I asked for a Tylenol.

I pushed for three hours as Saturday night rolled into Sunday morning.

As I held my 8 lb 13 oz newborn, my nurse hugged me.

"Not a bad way to get rid of a stomach bug," she said.

Indeed.

Five Reasons to Stop Hating on the Snow (No, really.)

Log in to your Facebook or Twitter account and you'll see that people are talking about one thing:  snow. 

Also, Egypt. 

But mostly snow.

And people are pissed.

But snow's getting an unfair rap.  Everyone loves it at Christmas, yet by February we're cursing it out and counting down the days until baseball season starts.

The snow's not ALL bad.  Here are five reasons I've found to stop hatin': 

5) INCREASED SECURITY  With two feet of snow on the ground and another foot expected within the next 24 hours, there is no way in hell that Bad Guys can even GET to my house to steal my stuff.  Have you tried walking in thigh-high snow?  Even if they could get in, my ice-coated front steps and skating rink of a driveway would keep them from getting away with the loot.  I can't even coordinate carrying my son's backpack and the mail without landing flat on my ass.  Good luck trying to haul away my TV, Bad Guys!
(Author's Note:  This is in no way meant to be seen as a dare, Bad Guys.)

4) CANCELLING MY GYM MEMBERSHIP  Why would I keep paying my monthly gym membership when I'm getting a free workout at home?  In fact, since the snow started falling (wait, that implies that there was once a time when the snow did not fall; that can't be right...) I've been getting far more exercise than usual.  Everyone knows that shovelling counts as both cardio AND weight-training.  My upper body is JACKED.  Just the look I was going for.  Bring on the tank tops, bitches.  I'm ready.

3)  NOW I HAVE SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT WITH THE CREEPY GUY UP THE STREET  So there's this guy.  Who lives up the street.  And he's kind of creepy.  My youngest son and I pass him every day on our walk to pick up my first grader from school.  He sits on a chair on his front stoop and pets his really ginormous dog.  Each day he waves at us and each day we wave back while I silently pray that his dog won't jump the fence and eat my five year old.  Now, we have something to talk about.  We roll our eyes and say, "Can you believe this?"  Or we laugh and say, "Why do we live here again?"  This perk is not limited to Creepy Guys Up The Street; it gives you an opening to make small talk with your mailman, the cashier at the grocery store, or the moms at preschool pickup.  Everyone's up for snow talk; it's the Great Unifier.

2)  HONING MY SUPER MARIO BROTHERS SKILLS  Santa brought us a Wii for Christmas, but the rule is that it's for weekends and No School days only.  Needless to say, it's been getting lots of extra use this winter.  As such, I can almost beat my seven year old at Super Mario Brothers.  Almost.  Four or five more snow days and I will totally dominate the next coin battle. 

1)  FREE BIRTH CONTROL  Somewhere in the far, far recesses of my memory, there exists a time and place where being snowbound was something to be excited about.  It meant loading up the cabinets with junk food, making a beer run, renting a stack of movies (omg, remember video stores?), and shacking up with your favorite person for the duration of the storm.  What else is there to do when you're stuck inside for 48 hours straight?  Now, however, a 'long duration snow event' is more than just a polite way of saying 'a really awesome sleepover that falls in the middle of your work week'.  Now it means that your kids will never go to school again; they will forever be home (yelling, fighting, and polishing off the Oreos you wanted to eat while watching the red carpet re-cap of the latest awards show and yelling at Claire Danes to EAT A FRICKIN' SANDWICH ALREADY!).  Nothing promotes abstinence like a string of snow days.  And not only do you NOT need a prescription for it, but you don't even need to hide the box under a copy of In Style magazine at the check-out.

So, while I don't necessarily WELCOME the snow, I'm ready to deal with it with my new-found optimism. 

Now, if only I can convince my husband to pick up Oreos on his way home...