In Which Amy is Honest about Depression

This is me:That was me on a good day. I was wearing new glasses, having a great hair day, and was dreamily picking out PS3 games that I wanted (you will be mine, "Batman: Arkham Asylum," oh, yes, you will be mine). Days like that are rare; when I'm cheerful and sunny, when I don't feel there's a foreboding sense of dread hanging over me, when I don't regret my past, when I don't fear my future.

Rare. Very rare. Like narwhal-spotting rare.

Narwhals live in depths up to 1500 meters of dense pack ice in the Canadian Arctic and Greenlandic waters rarely south of 65 degrees North Latitude, so they're a tricky animal to spot.

This is me: That is me on a bad day. I'm still wearing the new-ish glasses, but am having a bad hair day and am obviously trying to hide in the kitchen, but was followed in by my shadow, who I let play with the camera. Days like that are more common; when I'm down and quiet, when I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, when I can't let go of mistakes I've made, when I'm convinced nothing will ever get better.

Common. Very common. Like mosquitoes in your backyard during a summer BBQ common.

Do I really need to explain that? The state motto should really be: Mosquitoes and New Jersey: Perfect Together.

There are warnings these days are coming. I start to eat chips and salsa as my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I lose my temper of the smallest infraction, real or imagined. I barely speak and tend to avoid looking at people so they won't keep asking me "Are you okay?" over and over again.

Like with many things that you fear, the days leading up to the bad days and the actual bad days have many names: Going to a Bad Place, Entering the Swamps of Sadness, My Black Mood, My Griselda Period. There's not much I can do when I'm wallowing in the depths of the Swamps of Sadness but trudge on, dragging Artex behind me, and pray that I'm far enough in front of The Nothing that I can save Fantasia.

Wait, no. That's not me. Damn it, I hate it when I confuse my life with movies from my childhood.

This is where I would include the video of Artex sinking into the Swamps of Sadness, but that scene still makes me cry 26 years after I first saw it.

Self-indulgent as I was (am?), I would spend My Griselda Period on whatever couch was closest (hating my life, my clothes, my boyfriend and/or husband, the couch I was on, the shade of blue the sky was, the sky, whatever), barely dragging myself to work, where I would compensate for My Black Mood by being so "up" that I once had a boss pull me aside and ask if I was high.

I don't have that kind of luxury anymore. Having Lizzie means that when I'm Going to the Bad Place, I have to push my feelings down as much as possible so I can function as a mom. Erick will help out as much as he can, but, when he's at work and it's just Lizzie and me, panic will set in and I'll find myself worrying myself into an upset stomach over whether I can make her lunch or play with her or watch a movie with her without bursting into heaving sobs for no apparent reason.

Oh, and therapy doesn't work. You know why? Because I lie during therapy sessions. Oh, yeah, I lie my ass off: "No! Everything's fine! I don't even know why I'm here. This is so silly. I should just go." Three sessions and I never go back. I have no idea why I'm so desperate to abandon talking about my issues with a licensed professional, but have no problem crying all over a friend until their shirt is soaked with tears and snot.

Riding it out is my best option to getting through the bad days:

and back to the good days:

I don't mind riding it out. I just hope there's enough chips and salsa in the house for the next time or there's gonna be hell to pay.

In Which Amy Watches Early March Snow Accumulate

Oh, hello, snow. Welcome back.

For weeks, the dirty, late January-into-February snow has been melting. It's been glorious. The giant mound of snow at the end of my driveway that blocks my view of oncoming traffic has gotten a little smaller. Not small enough that I can see over or around it and notice if a giant oil truck is barrelling towards me or not, but smaller. I could see the ground. Of course, "ground" could be more aptly described as "over the ankle, shoe-grabbing, slimy muck," but I could still see it.

Winter here in MOFN takes forever to end. It seems to come earlier and earlier every year (this year, I'm convinced it started in October) and ends later and later every year. With the amount of snow we've gotten this winter, it'll be July before I can put on a tank top and complain about it being too hot. It would be one thing if I lived somewhere that's beautiful during the winter (Colorado, Switzerland, etc), but that isn't the case, so I make due.

Yes, by "making due," I really do mean "bitch and complain until I'm blue in the face," but I digress.

So, over the past few days, Lizzie and I have been watching the snow melt and talking about getting to go to the park. I'd been thinking about letting Lizzie run wild through Mom's backyard. I'd starting making all the lists of the day trips I was going to insist on.

First one? To The Windmill in Penn Yan, NY, quite possibly the awesomest outdoor/indoor shopping mall/flea market around. The food alone is worth the drive.

It was 57 degrees here on Saturday when I came back from running errands. We opened all the windows and let out some of the stale air, germs, and bad juju that builds up when three people are trapped in a small space for a prolonged period of time.

Then last night that evil witch Mother Nature decided to frig up The Coming of Spring (yeah, it deserves to be capitalized) by dumping over a foot of snow all over us. I watched it come down and wanted to weep. Where was my muddy, mucky ground going? What happened to my 57 degree day with open windows? And where the hell did my car disappear to? Oh, right, it's under that FOOT OF SNOW.

Thanks again, snow. Thanks for killing my dreams of putting away the scarves and gloves. Thanks for killing my dreams of opening the windows to let in the roar of traffic past the front of the house. Thanks for killing my dreams of eating my way up and down the paths of The Windmill.

Now, who wants to help me dig my car out?

In Which Amy Compares the Contents of her Purse, Then & Now

This is my favorite purse:

Nice, right?

It's huge. It holds everything. So much stuff, in fact, that I'm pretty sure the contents of it reproduce overnight. This afternoon, I was emptying it out, marvelling at the amount of paper and change that can accumulate in a weeks' time when I realized that--aside from my wallet--pretty much everything in "my" purse belonged, in some way, to Lizzie. I mean, look for yourself:

That's just insane. How can I carry around a $65 purse with wipes and Goldfish in it? I mean, it's not a diaper bag, for god's sake. I started thinking about what I used to carry around when I was single and not a mom. The contents of my bag looked a little bit more like this:

Okay, now I'll agree that some of the things are quite similar: snacks, books, and panties. But there's a huge difference between a banana and a Three Musketeers bar; two Disney Princess books and the controversial absurdism of Christopher Moore; and Disney Princess panties and Victoria's Secret panties.

Know what the difference is?

One word: Mommy.

In Which Amy Talks Valentine's Day

So, it's that time of year again. Just when you're done recovering from the crush of glitter, guilt, delight, and debt that is Christmas, Valentine's Day appears.

Oh, how I dislike Valentine's Day. Forced to "celebrate" it in elementary school by scrawling my name on the bottom of cheap, cardboard-y cards from Cost Cutters emblazened with the legend "I Love You Bear-y Much!" and decorated by an uber-cute pink teddy bear who would totally get his ass kicked in Jellystone Park and then walking around the room to give them to my classmates, Valentine's Day always turned into an anxiety-driven nightmare of counting all the cards in my "mailbox" (usually two hearts stapled together with an opening left on the top to slip the cards in and taped to the front of the desk) and realizing that even though I made a card for everyone, not everyone gave me a card. Oh, the repressed tears when it occurred to me that the cutest boy in class didn't give me a card but the "rich girl" in class got two from him. It's all coming back to me now. Oh . . . good . . . god . . . *sniffle, sniff, sniff*

(I think that's the reason I ignored the "rich girl's" friend request on Facebook.)

Middle school and high school brought on what I called All-Black Valentine's Day, when I would dress in an all-black outfit and skulk around the hallways, glaring at the girls who had multiple carnations pinned to their shirt. The days of the Cost Cutters Valentine's Day card give-outs were over. Now, the amount of popularity you had was measured in how many carnations you got in delivered to you during homeroom and 1st period. I never thought I'd miss the days of the anonymous desk mailbox delivery service ever in my life.

Even if I had a boyfriend (or husband) during Valentine's Day, I would insist that we ignore Valentine's Day. No giant stuffed teddy bears, no gooey cards, no dinner dates, and no chocolates--well, they could still get me chocolate. I'd never turn down candy. The reaction of the guy involved would range from "Are you serious? You don't want anything?" (said in an incredulous tone with a look of delight and relief on his face) or "C'mon, you don't want a card or anything?" (said in a disappointed tone with a look of surprised worry on his face). When I stressed I "really don't want a thing," most guys get that panicky, deer in the headlights look and you can hear them start to internally freak out, "Okay, does she really want nothing or is she doing that fucked up girl thing where she says she doesn't want anything but she really wants something and if I don't get her something, she's going to wig out and get all crazy? Shit, I should just break up with her. That's easier."

Remember that post I wrote at Christmas time about jewelery commercials and my loathing of them? Yeah, well, that applies here too. I'm convinced the ad men just digitally remove the Christmas decorations and replay the same commercials over again. I mean, that's what I would do to save money and not have to go through the nightmare of auditioning any more uber-adorable commercial kids.

When I got pregnant with Lizzie and my OB told me that my baby was going to be born anywhere between February 11th and February 19th, I immediately thought, "Oh, god. It's gonna be born on Valentine's Day. I just know it." As my pregnancy progressed and I was able to narrow down my due date more and more, the prospect of my kid being born on Valentine's was getting more and more possible.

"This is a nightmare. This is terrible," I lamented to Erick from my spot on the couch with a White Castle Crave Case of cheeseburger sliders balanced on my giant belly.

"What is?" he asked, surprised. I never spoke while eating when I was pregnant unless it was to slap his hand away from my meal and growl "Get off my food!" at him like a starving tiger.

"Because if she's (we already knew Lizzie was a girl at this point) born on Valentine's Day, every birthday gift she's ever gonna get from every cheap guy she dates is gonna be Valentine's themed and he's gonna say, 'This is for your birthday and Valentine's.' Just like Mark and Christmas." (Erick's brother Mark's birthday falls on Christmas Eve.)

"Aim, you really can't start worrying about that now," Erick reassured me.

Too late. I was already crying on my sliders. "I don't want to have a Valentine's Day baby!"

According to the ultrasound, Lizzie was weighing in at a whopping 9 pounds 6 ounces two weeks before my February 19th due date. When I saw my OB the next day, armed with Mom and Nannie's insistance that they induce me ASAP, he agreed that it was time to induce before she got any bigger and made the birth difficult. You know, because having a Thanksgiving turkey massing at your pelvis isn't difficult enough.

I was induced on Valentine's Day. Lizzie made her appearance on February 14, 2007 at 10.18 pm after 6 hours of hard labor, 4.5 hours of pushing, and a (slighty emergency) C-section, weighing in at 9 pounds 12.2 ounces and measuring at 21 inches.

Guess who never needs another Valentine's Day gift ever again.

In Which Amy Wishes She Stayed in Bed

Sometimes there are days when I just want to stay in bed.

You know those days. You open your eyes and look at the ceiling and think, "Oh, fuck this. Today already sucks." You don't know how you know it, but there's some little voice inside you whispering, "Stay in bed. Don't get up yet."

In my case, the little voice whispering is usually Lizzie, who always implores I not get out of bed so she can climb all over me like I'm a bouncy house. That's cute for about five minutes, then she'll stomp on my throat or jump on my right hip (you know, the "bad one"), and I'm like, "THAT'S IT! I'm getting up!!" and so starts our first Mommy-Daughter fight.

Today, the little voice whispering inside me not to get up was the subconscious part of my brain I call Amy2001, who liked to drink way too much and dance way too much and party way too much and wore really small shirts and had zero responsibilities and slept until noon on the weekends.

(Sometimes I miss Amy2001. *sigh!*)

Well, last night, Amy2001 insisted that Bacardi Silver and Country Time Pink Lemonade would make a completely kick-ass cocktail. So I made two of those in a pint glass, doubling the shots of Bacardi because I couldn't taste it over the super-sweetness of the pink lemonade. Amy2001 shrieked gleefully, jumped on the stage at the Bamboo, and shimmied her 24 year old ass off as I drank them down. Man, talk about rum o'clock.

That witch. I could totally kick her ass over the hangover I had this morning.

The day got a little better when I realized I had justenough coffee to flood my system with enough caffeine to drown my hangover. The day got a little worse when I realized I had no more creamer left and had to use 2-day expired milk.

And all this before 9.30am. Oh, my Christ on a cracker.

Aside from a speed metal concert, where's the worst place to go with a hangover? Yeah, that's right: the grocery store on a Saturday morning. By the frozen food section, I was taking deep cleansing breaths and shooting Jack Nicholson ala "The Shining" glares at people who looked at me wrong. Erick and Lizzie, blissfully dancing from one aisle to another, hardly noticed I was having a massive hangover-induced meltdown while Amy2001 screamed "Will you shut off that goddamn Muzak?!" and pulled the blankets over her head.

Oh, I should have rebelled and stayed in bed.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Amy2001 just showed up in our favourite boob shirt and that Bacardi Silver is looking awfully lonely in the freezer.

In Which Amy Lives with Cara

Guess where I am.

I bet you can't guess.

I'll give you a minute.

(cue "Jeopardy" theme music)

I'm at Cara's house!!

Yeah, that's right. I'm here for the Christmas break. I'm so excited to be here; it's gonna be awesome.

Mostly because I don't have to do anything.

No, seriously, Cara is totally a Cruise Director and has set up playdates and daytrips and all type of cool things for us to do with the kids. Not only that, she's offered to watch Lizzie if I want to go off and do things by myself.

Dude, I want to marry Cara. Does anyone think Bill would mind?

In Which Amy Talks Gifts

I'm watching the snow fall here in MOFN and I've resigned myself to the fact that winter is here. And with winter comes some undeniable, inescapable truths: it's really cold, it gets dark really early and the weather gets really crappy. Besides that also comes My Albatross:

Holiday themed jewelry store commercials.

On Facebook the other day I may have hinted that I find holiday jewelry commercials obnoxious, insulting, and exasperating.

I loathe them. I really do. The women in them porn-gasm when they see the little box from Zales/Kay/Jared/Helzberg Diamonds. The men in them always have doofy grins on their faces like they just washed down a handful of 'ludes with a fifth of tequila. And if you're really, really (un)lucky, you get the uber-adorable commercial kids hiding in the other room making comments like, "They're so cute at that age."

Oh, my Christ on a cracker. Somebody shoot me now.

I think men who buy jewelry for their wives are lazy. Oh, I know some women live for the sparkly stuff and will pitch a fit if their isn't some kind of bling under the tree for them Christmas morning, and I feel for those husbands, I really do (even though this is when I can pull out the old "You knew she was like that when you married her" card). But, know what? Some women (yours truly included) would rather have our husbands buy them something that's less generic.

Don't look at me like that: Jewelry is generic. Do you know how many diamond heart pendants Kay Jewelers sell during the Hanukkah/Christmas season? Thousands. Thousands upon thousands, if I want to (kinda) exaggerate. So that gift you're buying your woman that you think is so special? Yeah, thousands of other women are going to open it and coo over it too.

Rock on, guy. That's the way to show your girl she's unique and original.

I would rather have something under the tree for me Christmas morning that shows me my husband knows me. That he knows what I like, what I'm interested in, and what will, in fact, make me porn-gasm.

My Gift List is short, sweet, and super easy: I want Barnes & Noble gift cards, tickets to the New York Renaissance Faire (you don't even have to go with me!), written promises to wash dishes/load and unload the dishwasher once a week for a year, and maybe--if I'm feeling really extravagant--tickets to see a show on Broadway.

That's it. Isn't that simple? In fact, I've never had any guy read my list and say, "Damn, Amy, don't you want an over-priced piece of sparkle that you'll only wear once or twice a year?"

Gee, Anonymous Male Person in my Life, I can't believe I didn't think about that. Why don't you run down to Zales and buy me over-sized, over-priced, over-jeweled ring that makes it look like I'm carting around half a South African diamond mine and dwarf the size of my hand?

No, thanks. Just wash the damn dinner dishes every once and a while and I'm a happy girl.

In Which Amy Lists What She's Thankful For

Today is Thanksgiving. You might not have noticed since stores have decided to skip the entire month of November and started celebrating Christmas around October 30th, but I'm here to remind you that today is the day to celebrate what we're thankful for.

Now this is where I'm supposed to be all "I'm thankful for my family and my friends and my health and blahdy blahdy blahdy," but that's all been done before, so I'm here to list the things I'm really thankful for.

In no particular order, they are:

1. Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream. More specifically Mint Chocolate Cookie, Strawberry Cheesecake, and Dublin Mudslide.

2. Captain Morgan. No, not the pirate, the rum. In case you haven't noticed, I adore rum. In fact, I plan on drinking a little bit of it after dinner.

3. Jeans. I love jeans. You can dress them up, you can dress them down, and--if you're wearing them just right--they have the ability to buy you drinks all night long. (now, some would argue that a good bra could also have the ability to buy you drinks all night long too, but jeans can get you drinks from the front or the back. no bra has that much talent.)

4. The Internet. If I could ever figure out who actually invented the Internet, I'm going to kiss him/her right on the lips. Unless they're dead. Because that would be really disgusting.

5. Barnes & Noble gift cards. Any denomination works for me.

6. Sarcasm. I don't think that needs any explanation. Especially if you know me even a little bit.

7. My imagination. At this point, I've been using my imagination to crown myself Queen of England, to win the lottery, to write stories, to escape from the crapartment, and to make myself smile for so long, I feel like I should give it an extended vacation . . . maybe over Christmas.

8. Facebook. Oh, don't give me that look. You know you love Facebook. How on earth can you re-make friends and cyberstalk your enemies without it?

9. Bedtime. It just makes me smile.

10. Salt air. Nothing reminds me more of home and makes me happier then to stand on the beach and inhale a double lungful of salt air. Erick calls it "refilling my salt air tanks."

11. Converse. High tops, black ones. Classic and awesome.

12. Coffee. Wawa, Tim Horton's, Wegmans. I don't care; I love coffee.

13. Long car rides. Now, I will admit I sometimes fall asleep during long car rides. Sometimes, I talk so much that I'm like a one-woman show in the passenger seat. Either way, we're going somewhere.

14. TV. Don't be uppity. You freaking know you love the TV too.

15. Curling up on the couch with a book, a blanket, a cup of coffee, some good music and warm woolly socks on a cold winter's day. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's just nice.

So, Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Be thankful for your family and your friends and etc, but think about what else you're thankful for. You know, the selfish stuff that's just about you.

In Which Amy Waxes Poetic About Words

Words are awesome.

I love words. I love to learn new words. I love to make words up. I love correcting people when they use the wrong words (yeah, that's one of my most endearing qualities). I love that some words are the same word with totally different meanings (think Coke and coke).

But what I love most about words is how you use them with others. The way you speak and the words you use with your parents, for example, are usually completely different than the way you speak and the words you use with your friends. The simplest feelings can be expressed so simply, it's like poetry or so eloquently, you swoon.

Words can make you melt. And it's not just the words someone uses; a lot of time it's their tone of voice or the look they give you as they say it. Said by the right person with the right look and in the right context, words can self-combust a pair of Victoria's Secret panties faster than gasoline can combust an old building on Devil's Night in Detroit.

But, unless the words can touch you in some way, the tone, the look, and even the person don't mean a thing.

Anyone can ask, "What do you like about me?" and get an answer like "'Cause I like you." or "'Cause you're cool." Wow. Thanks, Mr. Romance. But if you ask someone, "What do you like about me?" and they respond, "The way we banter. The way your hair smells when we hug hello. The way my hand fits perfectly in the small of your back.", you are way more likely to melt all over the floor than if they responded, "'Cause you kick ass at Halo more than anybody I know."

Of course, unless you want to know that you kick ass at Halo more than anybody your crush knows. Then, good on ya.

Guys get the short shrift when it comes to using words to their full advantage. Most men don't give women the answers listed above to the super-girly "What do you like about me?" question (notice I said "most"--I know a few guys who know exactly how to answer that question so the asker needs to be picked up off the floor).

But women don't always use the right words either. Now, I'm not talking about screwing up "runs" for "touchdowns" or think "PAT" means "Point After aTtempt." (oh, and fyi, girls: PAT means Point After Touchdown). Despite what guys might say, they want girls to throw out some wordy compliments too. Make it wordy, but make it short, ladies. It's tough to do, but if you get all Shakespearean on your man, his mind will start to wander. Then the next thing you know, you're yelling at him because he wasn't listening and he's trying to defend himself because when you asked him, "Are you listening? What are you thinking about?", he answered very honestly, "That part in Titanic when Kate Winslet gets out of the car in the beginning of the movie and she's wearing that purple hat. She's hot." (true story)

Yeah, words are awesome. They can end a romance just as quickly as they can start one.

In Which Amy Talks About Blogging

Blogging seems like it should be so easy.

(No, this isn't going to be a re-hash of my writer's block post.)

You get an idea while washing dishes or scrambling eggs and it starts to germinate. You spend your day doing whatever you do all day long--keeping house, working, IM-ing doing homework as your 3 year old uses your body as her personal jungle gym--but all the while you're writing your blog post in your head.

I find myself writing the whole blog post in my head, editing it, posting it, reading it, and then breaking my arm patting myself on the back because it's just frakking brilliant.

The only drawback is that--wait for it--IT NEVER GETS WRITTEN.

Something always comes up: more IM-ing homework, a child-related crisis ("Mommy! We have no GOLDFISH CRACKERS!"), Facebook, watching DVR'ed TV shows from 3 weeks ago with Husband before hustling off to school. Coming home at 10pm sort of kills the creative gene, but never stops me from watching TV until 1am.

It was suggested to me that I purchase a digital voice recorder and ramble my ideas into it so I don't forget anything (I only knew that the person meant "handheld tape recorder" because the guys on Ghost Hunters will say digital voice recorders and then grab handheld tape recorders). It sounded like a really good idea for about 30 seconds, then I had a terrible flashback of rambling into a tape recorder during my pot-smoking days, thinking I was spouting off pearls of wisdom. But--when listened to when I was straight--was mostly just hours and hours of me crunching Pringles and meandering through half-thought-out statements and many, many, many, many instances of me saying, "Uhhhh . . . yeah . . . like . . . mmmmmmm . . . " which I assumed wasn't an actual pearl of wisdom I was trying to get out, but mostly my Maui Wowie-induced appreciation of overly-salted potato treats.

Blogging is, in fact, harder than it looks. I can tell you a story that will make you laugh because of hand gestures and facial expressions and precisely placed sarcasm, but it loses a lot in translation when I type it up on a computer screen. (A friend of mine came in contact with this phenomena the other day when I made a comment about rape and being glad I'm not a guy. I could feel his tense uncomfortable-ness through the Internet so I backpedalled quickly with the always safe "That sounded a lot cuter in my head.") So many funny things happen around here during the day, but it always seems flat and boring when typed up. Told to girls I go to school with, though, it kills.

I read on another blog I love that the key to blogging is to write everyday. Dude, really? Thanks for playing. If I could write everyday, two of my posts wouldn't be about how I can't write everyday. But that blogger had a point. There are so many blogs, so many news stories, so many things that happen during an average day, how can I possibly not find something to write about? Easy.

1. Some things would make for great blog-fodder, but aren't worth the fight with {fill in blank with person or family member's name} that would follow the publication.
2. Some things really do lose a lot in translation. Read this statement: "I have no idea why you kept taking "no" for an answer. I couldn't if I were you. Guess it's a good thing I'm not a guy." Terrifying, right? Now picture me saying it while waving around a glass of white wine and giggling like mad with a flirty/snarky look on my face. Hysterical, right? (you really have to know me and my sense of humour to think this is funny. you know who you are)

So, I will press on, trying to find funny things to blog about. Don't be surprised if my next few blog posts are about my dull to the nth power life in MOFN or how I will never, never, never, never get to move back to New Jersey (this is the part of the sentence when I throw myself across the love seat with my hand to my forehead like a Massive Drama Queen).

God help you all.

Maybe Cara can save us all with some really, really brilliant blog posts. We know she can do it.