Which is not what I said to the acupuncturist.  She asked why I wanted to try acupuncture, and I told her, begrudgingly, “I’m trying to get pregnant.” I booked my appointment.  Filled out a long questionnaire that had a lot of questions about the color, density and frequency of my stool, my vaginal discharge (oh mercy) and my stress levels.  Anger, check!  Depression, check!  Anxiety, check, check, check!  And fearfulness, check baby, check baby, one two!

When I got to her office, I was sort of bedraggled and tired.  I laid down on the treatment table, told her about my sex life and my mood swings and she told me a few things about diet and my exercise regime (no more Shredding for me!  yay! I still get to jog, though, so not completely off the exercise hook) and she said that from what she saw on my questionnaire and provided my gyno will do a little blood work and a fallopian tube procedure to rule out anything hormonal or mechanical, my stress levels are probably the most detrimental thing to my fertility.  That and the fact that I have an old husband.

Then she told me I had to quit drinking coffee.  Hmmm.  I might have felt all of these emotions at that moment - rage, anxiety, depression, fearfulness.  Coffee and the occasional margarita are my only vices! I am squeaky clean, lady, don’t take away my coffee!  She smiled and said, “I know, it’s very delicious, I drink it myself.  But I have 2 children at home, so I am allowed.”  Bitch.

Then we got to the low acid diet, and the herb and vitamin regime and I was like, enough!  I get it, I get to have no joy in my life, just poke me with the needles already! And she did.  She poked me with what she called the “tiny baby needles.”  And the only one that hurt was the one on the right side of my stomach.  Sort of a pinching from the inside kind of hurt.  It was unpleasant and weird but not terrible.  Then she poked my head, told me to close my eyes, relax and breath.  And she left the room.

I don’t meditate.  I cannot relax when there is hippy dippy music playing.  My feet were freezing.  The sun was peaking in from the window at the top of the room at that annoying brightness level that isn’t too bright but is still bright enough and all I could think about is how I wished I could put something over my face.  I tried to adjust my body position and felt like the needles were ripping my guts out.  It was the opposite of relaxing for me.  But I laid there, counting down from 100 - the only way I know how to quiet my mind and my lady finally came back in.  She smiled and asked me how I felt.  I was like, oh lady, you have no idea what you’re in for with me.  “Not relaxed?”  Dude, so not relaxed.   She said, “Well, it’s a process.  We’ll get there.”  I was like, ok… If you say so.

The rest of the day I felt like a complete bumbling mess.  I dropped my computer bag in the nurses office while getting my blood work.  Like from waist height, just dropped it.  I tripped and threw all of my paperwork down while getting out of the elevator and then dropped my sunglasses and my keys trying to pick it all up.  When I got home, I couldn’t stop jabbering and Seth was like, uh, what happened to you, you’re a manic mess.  And I was like, I have all these herbs and I can’t drink coffee and you need to get your sperm tested!

I am still pretty manic today, but that might be the three green teas I’ve had.   I almost just wrote as a final sentence, I LOVE YOU!  But that would be weird, so, let’s just close this with, hey, yoga meditation people, how do you do it?!

Without further ado, at #31 on my Life List is to try 100 recipes I’ve never made.  This weekend I did two!  Both from the cookbook my mom put together for my sister and I.  Below is the recipe for the Peach Cobbler.  The other will follow later this week.

Peach Cobbler

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
•  4 cups sliced fresh peaches (this is about 3 large peaches, I think you should use 4 large peaches.)
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons shortening
• 1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Blend 1/2 cup sugar and cornstarch in medium saucepan.  Stir in the peaches, cinnamon and lemon juice.  (Note:  when I did this I was totally nervous that there wouldn’t be enough liquid.  Somehow, there is.  It’s really amazing.  Fear not!) Cook, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boils.  Boil and stir 1 minute.  Pour into ungreased 2 quart casserole.  Keep fruit mixture hot in oven while preparing biscuit topping.

Biscuit topping

Measure flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, baking powder and salt into bowl.  Add shortening and milk.  (I think I messed up my shortening measurements because something was off with the biscuits, they didn’t taste like my mom’s.)  Cut through shortening 6 times, mix until dough forms a ball. Drop dough by 6 spoonfuls onto hot fruit.  Bake 25-30 minutes or until biscuit topping is golden brown.  Serve warm, and if desired, with ice cream.  Six servings.

I think the next time I make this, I’ll use more peaches, my peach to biscuit ratio was off.  Also, I think I’ll leave it in the oven a little longer, it just tasted slightly different than my mom’s.  I know it wasn’t perfect because 3 days later, we still have leftovers.  Cobbler never lasted that long in my mom’s fridge.

Now, Jezebel is at fault here too.  They’re reprinting a sentiment - making a splashy headline - and while they’re questioning the motives behind the sentiment, they are still repeating the same  patriarchal bullshit their sibling sites publish.  It’s offensive.

She has two douchey sons running amok.  Let’s give those idiots no responsibility for their actions and blame it all on their mama.  Because she was too busy to raise them right.  Because she had the audacity to be a woman and have a career.  I am livid.

I don’t like her politics but she deserves a better headline than being a “Bad Mother.” Talk about her bad voting record.  Talk about her questionable antics while at Goldman Sachs.  Talk about her poorly run campaign.  But her being a bad mother?  What do you want America?  Do you need your mommy to tell you how to act when you’re in COLLEGE?

If you want to read where this “Bill of Goods” thing started.  Read my previous post.

This weekend I spent Saturday in bed, when I told my friend that he said, “Oh!” as only an openly gay man can, and I shook my head and said, “No, not that way.”  And he said, “Oh….”  And we laughed.  I’m trying to get pregnant, but not like all day long.  Mostly this weekend I was trying to fight the plague that a certain group of story producers leaked into our shared bullpen. (Their show rhymes with rodrect prungay, they are the sickest! I think because they work harder than we do, their show is 3 times longer than ours, and they have 3 times the staff…)  Still no baby, but a full fledged cold has been incubated.  Yay, me?

I just read an excellent post by Cecily about personal blogging and how we oversharers, people who talk about their addictions, their fuck ups, their lady parts, are rare in the current “blog market.”  New bloggers fiercely protect their identity and their brand because they want large corporations to pay them cash money to write about a small segment of their lives.  Cool.  Just, not for me.

I’ve never been a brand.  I’ve never advertised on this page.  The only money I’ve made on this blog is on this post about how much I love my insurance company.  I wrote the post, it showed up in my poor insurance company’s new media guy’s google alert 5 years later, and they offered to pay me to include a link to their page.  That’s about how much effort I’m willing to put into making money on my blog.  I admire writers who are able to turn their blogs into money making ventures, but that’s just not ever what this place was for.  I was inspired by Pamie, and then I found a small group of people who were in the same place in their lives writing about their experiences and I connected with them and laughed and tried to make them laugh.

The best part about writing here is that I’ve been writing about my life for six years.  Not the weird rambling repetitive shit I write in my paper journal about my idiotic obsession with success, how I wish certain people were dead because I hate their guts, and why I am so ever loving sad and nervous all of the time. The stuff I write here, while it might not appear so to the casual reader, is edited, refined and written for a reason other than to complain.  I can sift through my own archives and figure out where I was 5 years ago.  (Oh god, I just did that, wow, it’s been a long 5 years… different boyfriend, different house, different Tamara.)

Now, six years later, I write for a living.  I work in reality tv partly because I know there are smart people out there who will see the ridiculous moments we’re putting in there for their pleasure.  I think I also work in reality because of this page, writing here has helped me see how the reality of a situation can be made funnier.  How the reality of a situation can be improved with a wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

This Robitussin isn’t going to take itself, so I best get on that.  I hope it doesn’t kill the yet to be conceived baby…

2. There’s something so very special about having a life partner who knows you so well that he gets a key made for you with your favorite baseball team logo plastered on it and he calls it your “yankey.”

3. I cannot help but look at wedding dress options even though I know that this means I’m part of the hetero- capitalist machine. I refuse to wear a white dress to the courthouse, so I’ve promised myself I will wear something in my closet.

4. Inspired by Bitter Sweetly, I wrote down some goals for myself this week. So far I’ve actually been trying to achieve them. Who knew I could so easily manipulate myself?

5. I am really glad Prop 8 was overturned, because I really want to be invited to my friend’s gay wedding. It’s going to be so fantastic.

I felt very sad about not getting pregnant in June.  I was so sure I would.  I boo-hooed about it for a day then I read an article about a study conducted that said women without children are far happier than those with.  Even worse, women with children are the least happy when they are physically with their children.  I’m sure there are about a 100 other studies going on right now to figure out why that is true or if it is untrue, and I can guarantee it has something to do with this new theory I’m forming about the bill of goods sold to women of my generation and (I expect) the generations following.  The bill of goods that says you can have it all, you can be whatever you want, you can find the man of your dreams, you can live the picture perfect life and not only that, if you don’t - if you aren’t all of these things - a mother, a college educated career driven woman, and a wildcat in the sack with your loving devoted husband - you aren’t trying hard enough, and you’re a failure.  Hard to believe women would be unhappy when we’re expected to do all of these things and the men of our generation are promised that we will be all of these things - and they don’t have to do one damned thing different except not open the door for us.  It’s a theory I’m still fleshing out, but when I start to really think about it, I start to really get pissed off.

Mostly though, the past few weeks have been spent trying to respect myself.  I learned something about this in therapy.  I spend a large part of my day finding fault with myself.  The part about therapy that really started to get me down, was that I was expected to wallow in the failures of my upbringing.  Wallow in the ways in which I could blame everyone around me for why I am the way I am.  Why I don’t like being who I am a lot of the time.  I want to be perfect.  I want to be thin, funny, smart, talented, productive, positive and loved.  I’m working on the productive and positive parts.  I can admit I’m smart, I can admit I’m talented, I have been praised for my comedic timing, I believe I’m loved and even though I want to be thin, I can at least recognize that my body dysmorphic disorder is often in overdrive and I’m learning to love my shape.   But I want it all.  I want to be able to do the triathlon - but the fact that I have to skip the swim upsets me.  I won’t be perfect.  I’ll be pussing out for part of it.  I am working on forgiving myself for this.  I’m working on forgiving myself for not taking care of my body while I’ve been nursing my depression and my stress.  But moreover - I’m trying to accept the fact that I’ll likely never look like an athlete/model/actress.  It helps that I get to laugh every day with my friend who sits directly across from me at the work, and my Seth who sleeps next to me.  I’ve started running again, after my injury time off.  My ear was bothering me so much that I didn’t want to get out of bed, much less work my ass off trying to keep up with Seth.  But now I can and it feels so good.  Blazing down beautiful streets at dusk with the dude and the dog I love.

I am a lucky girl.

Every night we sit on our front stoop with Lula between us, watching the Hasidic Jews walk by, drinking a tall glass of ice water and basking in these special days we have here together.   In 25 years I’ll look back and have these to add to my long list of nostalgia.  And I’m so very glad.

First, I had to get a hearing test.  It was hard, y’all.  I am terrible at the Opthamologists office, when they’re like 1 or 2, this or that, and in this one, it’s not a multiple choice.  It’s just, can you hear this?  We don’t tell you when to expect it, do you hear it?  Anything? How about now?  What about this?  Can you repeat this word?  (What word?)  And on and on.

She lead me back to the waiting room and I told Seth I was completely fucked that I had to repeat words and I couldn’t fucking HEAR them.  And there were no 2nd chances!

We got called to the front of the waiting room in a group of 5 people, and I thought, what the hell is this?  Group hearing therapy?  But she separated us off and we waited in a freezing cold room.  Doctors like things to be cold.  I guess it’s better than sitting in a room and sweating.

When Dr. Goddard (the cutest doctor I’ve had in a long time.  Maybe ever.  Like farm boy, central casting, cute doctor cute) came in he told us he works with Dr. Friedman (the doctor I’d been referred to) and that he was going to look in my ear and he did.  And he said, “Oh, there it is, it’s not that bad.”  Which is way better than what my other ENT did, which was go, “WOAH.  THAT’S A BIG ONE!”  He talked to me about my ear and Seth made him blush when he did some tests by touching my face, Seth bellowed out, “Don’t you touch her!”  He giggled.

He told me that because of the location of the hole in my ear drum that surgery is recommended.  The reason is, skin can grow into my ear canal and fuck things up, like cause my face to go paralyzed.  And ever since this girl in high school had Bells Palsy, I’ve been afraid of facial droopy paralysis situations.  Then Seth asked him, “What would you do?”  And he said, “If you were my sister, I’d tell you to have the surgery.”  And I was like, I can be your sister…. I can be whoever you want me to be. (But I only said that in my head.)

Then, he pulled out my hearing test.  And he said, all dramatically, “So, let’s talk about your hearing.”  And I was thinking, oh here it comes, I’m gonna get fitted for hearing aids today.  He looked very serious, and he said, “In your right ear [the good one] you have above average hearing.”  And he showed me the chart, and I was like, “Are you saying, I’m like a superhuman in my right ear?  Like I have an A++ in that ear?”  And he smiled and said, “Yes.  Your hearing is excellent in that ear, and that is why you are perceiving the difference in your left ear, which is also still in the average range, just slightly lower than the right.”  Basically, I’m not only not deaf, I have one bionic ear and one average human ear.  Woo!  (I’ve been bragging about this all day.)

So we consulted with the surgeon, Dr. Friedman, and he used a fancy magnifying and projecting ear looking thingy and I got to see it on a TV screen.  The ear is kind of cruddy looking inside there.  It’s gross, and now I can’t even use q-tips.  I was contemplating how one cleans one’s cruddy dirty looking holey ear when Dr. F took a phone call wherein he had reason to name drop his brother.  When he got off the phone, Seth said, “You’re Robby’s brother?  I knew him when he was at Warner’s.”  And Dr. Friedman said, “Yeah, I want his life.”  And I was like, fuck that!  You’re a damned surgeon, he’s just the head of a billion dollar studio.  His parents must be so proud.

So, I’m waiting to hear (pun intended) when I’m going to have this surgery.  And when I’m going to get married.  Because there’s a whole health insurance situation that’s going to need to be squared away.  Who’s got their marrying license?

“Make a wish!”

I did and I’ll let you know if it comes true.

I’ve had a weird weekend.  Fits and starts, naps and late nights, books and movies, tv and radio.  It was a gorgeous day today and now that the Yankee game is over, I can relax or start worrying about not sleeping tonight.   Maybe I’ll do both.

I have a lot of bad.  I think if we’re honest we all can find a lot of bad.

My demons are plenty, but mostly I feel like shit physically right now.

I am dealing with a bum ear, and those that know me know I’m a terrible sick person.  I need a cave to hide in and someone to throw medicine and food at me from a safe distance.  I am having a hard time hearing on the left side, thrice daily drops poured into my ear canal, congestion, hives, sleepless nights, and all the while dealing with a new daytime situation that has me commuting to the dreaded valley and sitting at a table made of plastic.  It’s a hard knock life, for us.

So, if you notice a bit of extra angst on these here pages, I will just tell you, I’m working some things out, and this is my safe place.

On the upside, I got to go to the Dodger v. Yankee game tonight, something I had been looking forward to for a while.  And aside from the extra obnoxious vibe of Dodger fans, it was good to be back at the park.