Short Story Note

I wrote my short story when we arrived in Great Barrington, almost a year ago. I had no idea I was pregnant-so when I talk about taking sleeping pills, this is my disclaimer...NO IDEA I was pregnant. I cleaned out the cat box while we were driving across the country too, but Penny seems okay. :) Smile.

A Short Story - I am Jo March, Sort Of

I imagine I’m like Jo March in Little Women. Leaving my beloved family and setting out on an adventure in the big city to clear my head. There are a few major differences. Jo March didn’t go too far. She started in Concord and landed in Boston and eventually moved to a house in the same neighborhood as her parents. Jo was single, she met a professor in Boston and fell in love. I met my husband in Portland and came here for his job. Jo moved to the big city and although we are in close proximity to several big cities, we are living in the smallest town I’ve ever seen. There are a million other slight differences…I live in the twenty first century, we drove across the country in a Penske truck towing a mini van, I only have one sister and thank goodness she’s not sick and the biggest difference, I suppose, is that Jo took her trip out of courage and the desire for change. I’ve always feared change more than anything.

I go through my day humming the theme from the 1990’s Little Women remake in my head. There are no words (thank goodness) and the tune is neither happy nor sad, simply a tribute to quaint living and the warm love of family and friends.

In reality, I suppose I am not in the most romantic of scenarios. I am experiencing day three of being cooped up in a hotel room in Albany, NY while my husband trains for his new position. At first, I was relieved. For most of my adult life, my secret fantasy has been to break away somewhere and spend an entire day in a hotel room sleeping with no phone calls, no work and no responsibility. It was fun- great even- for the first few hours, but after the Lifetime Movie Network started replaying the same movies and I’d seen every episode of Melrose Place, I got tired of being here.

Jo had something to do. She had kids to govern and a professor to go to the opera with. Granted, I have my own professor, who’s better looking than the one in the 1990s remake. But there are no operas in this neighborhood and I can’t seem to find a job to save my life.

Did I mention, I couldn’t look like Wynona Rider to save my life? For that matter, I couldn’t look like Katherine Hepburn either…although I’d rather look like Wynona as long as I’m imagining things.

Yesterday I took a sleeping pill in the middle of the day. I don’t think Jo March would have done that.

I just need to make it through today and tomorrow and then we’ll be back in Great Barrington where we will be living into the unforeseen future. The house we will be moving into will not be available for three more weeks. Luckily, our new landlord is being very generous and allowing us to stay in another property he owns, free of charge! His kindness could not have come at a better time.

The first night we arrived into town, we were greeted by Charlie’s parents. They drove for hours just to welcome us and I truly appreciated the gesture. Unfortunately, we had lined up a place to live online, we had gone to see it before we went to see them and were horribly disappointed with both the cost and the square footage. I suppose if I had wanted a true Little Women experience, we should have taken the apartment. It seemed to be from the right time period and the Marches lived in poverty…although I think, upon further reflection, this must have been more like the Hummel’s house. So it was with heavy hearts that we greeted the Deitzes and they accompanied us to another property which was equally a, would Jo say, “S*** box?”

I tried to put on a brave face for my in-laws and my husband. By now the brass and the strings of the Little Women theme was blasting at full volume in my head. A wave of homesickness swept over me as I felt the small parameters of the town close in all around me. I excused myself to my hotel room for a “Nap” and called my parent’s house. I talked for a while to my dad, which even writing about now brings tears to my eyes. He said all was well at home and that he loved me, then I talked to my mom who has always had an ability to detect tears even from long distance phone calls. I claimed allergies which probably didn’t throw her off at all, but she went along with it anyway. I got off the phone determined to make this new life work. I went out to the hotel pool where my mother in law was sitting and reading. I chattered about absolutely nothing for almost an hour. Diane has the patience of a saint, I’m sure I was nowhere near making sense.

When we retired for the evening, I locked myself into the bathroom when I thought Charlie was not looking and sobbed. A good long cry. I remember my mom saying that you can set aside feelings of sadness and worry for a set time and it allows you to function during the rest of your day. I decided I would give my self 10 minutes to freak out. And freak out I did. I contemplated trying to convince Charlie to fly home, I asked God to help us find something better- some comfort in this new situation. I thought about taking all of my migraine medicine at once- I dismissed that one fast- this was Little Women, not Madame Bovary!

I came out of the bathroom and Charlie was waiting for me looking horribly apologetic. Did I really think he wouldn’t hear me sobbing and taking big heavy breathes, I might as well have been shouting, “WHY ME?” at the top of my lungs. I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit. Seeing Charlie in that moment brought me back around. I needed to stop trying to find a way around these changes and start accepting that this was our life right now. He needed me. I had been strong back home, I promised him I would support his career choices no matter where they took us. I was happy for him and proud of him and doing a terrible job of convincing him.

I woke up the next morning with amazingly puffy eyes. I put on an abundance of under eye concealer not wanting my in-laws to pick up on my difficult evening. We faced the new day not knowing what we would find, but with hope. Our first challenge was finding a place to store our Penske truck while we went to Albany for Charlie’s training. Problem solved. The people who owned the truck rental company said we could keep the truck there free of charge. After spending most of the morning on the phone with various real estate agents, one of them referred us to Jim. Jim is the owner of the house we will be moving into in the next few weeks. Finally, we had to find a place to board our two cats. (Who, by the way, hated us for this trip- it seems they fear change too.) At first, we plotted to try to sneak them into the hotel in Albany inside of our suitcases, but when it came down to it, the idea seemed less than reasonable. On a lark, on our way out of town, we tried the vet/pet boarding and grooming place next to the house we would be renting. The girl at the counter said she couldn’t take the cats without vaccine paperwork. The cats had been vaccinated, but the proof was laying in a box in the back of our Penske truck. The girl at the front counter took our word for it. Not only that, but she put the cats in their own little playroom where they could act up and scratch everything they saw. Within 24 hours all of our worries had been taken care of, maybe God heard my sad ramblings in the bathroom and put some good people in our way. I feel a little like a spoiled child who threw a temper tantrum but who’s parents humored her anyway. Maybe I’m more like Amy March than Jo.

People in our new town seem to do business based on their word. It’s old fashioned, but refreshing. More than that, living in a small town is teaching me to follow through on things. I had applied for a job and as it turned out it wasn’t going to pay enough. In Portland, I would have blown off the next interview and not called back. You can’t do that in a small town, the chances of my running into the woman who interviewed me are very high. I called her back and said I couldn’t proceed in the interview process. To my alarm, when I got off the phone I was sweating buckets! Maybe this move will cure me of some old bad habbits.

My feelings seem to come and go quickly. This morning a leak in our hotel room sink meant that someone was going to have to come up to the room and work on it while Charlie was away. This area of town is-would Jo say, “Ghetto?” so I didn’t have anywhere to go and I’m very nervous around strangers. I pouted a lot this morning about that, but it turned out okay.

Jo March is my favorite literary character. I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter. My middle name is Jo for Jo in the story. She’s spunky and brave and vulnerable and creative. I’m hoping that by facing my fear of change, I will take on more of these characteristics. We both live in Massachusetts now.

Health Insurance and Voicemail

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
This morning I found out that I was not granted an exception on my state health insurance application. Despite the fact that it would cost over a third of my husband's paycheck to insure me.
It took mass health over two months to qualify me and 2 weeks to cancel me. The worst part was talking to the representative today who said income didn't play a part in the decision, and that since I was married and my husband's employer offers insurance, I had to go through them.
"Now, if you were to obtain a divorce," she suggested, "and re-apply for Mass Health, we might be able to reconsider you."
Okay so....weighing my options. Gonna have to go with loyal and cute husband of five years instead of crack-pot and unreliable health insurance. What is wrong with this state!?
When I called back to see if we qualified for the Premium Assistance Program, they said no because the decision was not based on my husband's insurance, but rather on our income being too substantial to fit the restrictions. WHAT?
Someday when we move, I am going to write an open letter to Mass Health and post it on this site and it will not be pretty.
Mass Health.....
I found this news out on my way to a Le Leche Meeting. I called my husband and started crying and pulled the car over into where else...McDonalds...my rainy day haven. He said the obligatory, "Don't worry we'll work it out." line and I got off the phone and ordered some ice coffees. (Gonna have to start drinking ice coffee at home, it's my Achilles' Heel.) I look at my face in the rear view mirror and it's all red and puffy and cry-ish. I decide I will go home and tackle this insurance puzzle and skip the meeting.
While I'm sitting in the drive through though, I notice I have a voicemail. It's Janet, the Le Leche leader, she left me a message letting me know there was a meeting and said that she'd like to see me there. This was the first person in this town I've had more than a 5 minute conversation with that wasn't a paid professional.
I grab my coffee and haul A over to the library where the meeting is being held. I pull into the parking lot and dab concealer on over my puffy red face and I walk into the meeting 10 minutes late.
I think I must have either forgotten to rub the make up in, or still looked like I'd been bawling my eyes out because the room got all quiet when I walked in.
Not the best start, but I can't very well leave now.
I sit the car seat with sleeping Penny down next to me on the carpet and immediately people begin introducing themselves.
The woman next to me has an 11 week old, I take one look at Penny and one look at her baby and I start thinking..."Maybe I AM overfeeding her?" Smile.
Someone starts talking about how they have trouble getting sleep because their baby wakes up a couple of times a night to eat. Someone else says they are dealing with thrush. Someone else doesn't know how to keep mosquitoes away from her baby....
Could this be conversation? Real ...adult...conversation?
I forgot how much I missed talking to other women.
I mentally box up the health care debacle and quit obsessing about whether or not I remembered to rub in the make up on my face. And for the first time in weeks I feel like I've rejoined the human race.
I walk out of the meeting with the phone number of one of the moms with a baby close to Penny's age and a promise to get together soon.
Earlier this morning I thought I was going to fall apart. None of the insurance news has gotten better with all of my phone calls this afternoon, but it was so nice to have a break in the middle of the day.
I'm so glad Janet left a message.

Date Night

Date night. A glorious tradition that has fallen by the wayside since the arrival of the latest addition to our family. For months now, what once used to be a nice dinner out followed by -you guessed it- the Thursday night NBC line-up has been replaced with tag team dinners and naps. Well, tonight we gave date night one more try. We went bowling.
Yes, we did have a sort of third wheel along with us, but who is lucky enough to have a third wheel that sleeps through most of the date and can't talk yet??
We arrived at the bowling alley, Charlie in his Saturday Night Fever T-Shirt and me in another one of Charlie's shirts and a pair of baggy shorts.
Poor innocent bowlers had to look at my pasty legs for the better part of an hour.
We set up the game and went to town. Bowling Town.
Wow, do we suck at bowling. I won the first round with a whopping score of 58 (To Charlie's 37...that's right....37) Charlie won the next round and actually got above the hundred mark...I held to my mid-50s score for round two. My low point was definitely chasing the bowling ball down the isle after I dropped it behind me and it rolled away in the other direction. Charlie's was a combination of nothing bowls, deteriorating high fives and what looked like a sort of deranged tap dance every time he took a turn. The Avril Levign album playing in the background only helped with the ambiance.
As I looked around me half way through the game, I saw all of these young cute girls. I knew their tans were fake because it's been raining all summer. So skinny and stylish, so much energy. I remember being that age and trying so hard. Wanting to be noticed.
I looked down at my white legs and baggy shorts, my husband's T-shirt and my newly purchased black anklets (I didn't remember to bring socks with me from the house) and I thought, "This is the most fun I've ever had bowling." How lucky am I that I don't have to try to get noticed anymore? The pressure's off. I have a cute husband who only cares that we're out having fun. I have a sweet baby who's puking just a little bit on her T-shirt, but who has been smiling and happy since we left the house.
All of that time in high school and college wanting to get noticed.... so that I could have exactly what I had tonight.
I may still have a ton of baby weight to lose, I may be the pastiest woman in Massachusetts, I may not be sexy or sassy or eighteen anymore. But tonight I feel like I have arrived.

No Cable?

We have been without cable (Basic or otherwise) for almost two weeks now. Right now, as the sun is setting, dinner has been made and consumed and Charlie's rocking my little buddy outside on the porch, I have to say I don't miss it.
I'll tell you when I do miss it though. At eight in the morning when Charlie leaves for work and I would have clicked on the TODAY show, eaten some toast, drunk my two cups of coffee and fed Penny. It's funny, I've rarely ever even paid attention to what's being said on that show, but for a few hours every day, I've felt like I had friends chattering in the background of my life.
For two hours in the morning, when Penny takes her morning nap, I've had to come to terms with silence. Me and my thoughts.....alone.....uncensored, without distraction and without Hoda Kopb and Kathy Lee Gifford ogling men and drinking (A little too early in the day-I might add.)
Sometimes I can't stand it. I stare a million times at the clock waiting until enough time has gone by to pack up Penny and take her into town under the guise of delivering coffee to my husband. Sometimes I eat everything in the fridge, starting with the good stuff and working my way back to the more questionable items, last week's chicken, a jar of fudge from a year ago...rice that makes crunching noises when I chew it. I want that crunching sound to drown out the sound of my own loneliness. I want the chewing to sound like my friends at the TODAY show, but it doesn't. I turn on the radio, but I only get static. I turn on the fans but I cringe to think of what the electric bill could turn into. I even do aerobics. Gasp. I ponder waking Penny up, but she can only crank out a couple of syllables at a time, not particular stimulating conversation.
I guess when it all boils down, I have let TV replace the need I had for people in my life. The sweet questioning voice of Matt Lauer has replaced my need for adult conversation. Its very sad really.
Well now here I am. I suppose I should be thankful for the experience, my eyes have been opened and I have seen the light. Anne Curry will no longer make me feel like it's okay to shut out the world for her friendship.

A Letter To My Better Half

From your diligent dispensing of ice chips during labor, to your early morning drives to keep Penny quiet when my head hurt, you are the best friend, dad and companion a girl could ask for. It must be hard getting up every day with the weight of being the sole bread winner on your shoulders, but it's a burden you've carried gladly for nearly a year now.
Our little buddy already looks at you with admiration. She tries to form words to talk to you, her face lights up when you play with her.
When you come home, I breathe a sigh of relief. I love our conversations, I know we will never run out of things to talk about.
We've had some heartaches, we've had more good times than bad, you always listen, you encourage and inspire me when I think I have nothing left at the end of a long week, or month, or year.
You never blame my hormones.
You never tell me to calm down.
You Do insist that I do laundry out of our scary basement, because you're too cheap to pay the laundromat, but I'm not holding that against you.
In a generation that is still deliberating about what our roles should be as parents, as men and women, you strike a perfect balance of respect, independance and chivalry.
I'm so thankful that Penny has a strong and good man in her life.
I'm thankful that I do too.
Someday we may have all of the stuff we ever wanted. We may be able to fly from coast to coast and stay at our beach houses. We may drive sexy cars and freelance write from anywhere we want. We may be on "House Hunters International" as we search for a flat in Barcelona.
OR we may still be in this silly rental house with its falling apart cupboards, its sometimes working phone lines and its never quite clean walls and floors.
We will always have love, we will always have conversation, we will always have our family, our drives to nowhere, our podcasts of This American Life and probably the minivan.
I take comfort in these thoughts as I take comfort in you.
I love you from here to South America, to Saturn, to the Moon, to Portland, Oregon to Tinton Falls, New Jersey and back to the sticks of Massachusetts.
I think you're doing a great job.

You Gotta Have Faith....And Meet the Press

I had a breakthrough this weekend.
For a long time now on Sundays Charlie and I have attended what my parents affectionately refer to as "The Church of Meet the Press." However last week we canceled our Direct TV contract and have been without television since. Thus we have also been without our beloved congregation of politicians, newsmen and policy makers. If it's Sunday it's........Not Meet The Press......:( sad face. I miss you David Gregory!
Since the TV is out of commission, I decided it was time to go to a real live church. But we've been down this road before.
I may have mentioned that we live in a VERY small town. There are churches-a-plenty, but most of them have congregations of 30 or less, and new comers tend to stick out like sore thumbs. We've tried different denominations. The Catholic churches always ask us to take up the gifts, which ruins the whole service for me because I always think I'm going to screw it up...and I actually did last time. We visited a protestant church that made us sign the guest book and then read our names out loud and asked us to wave during the service.
I may sound incredibly petty, I may actually be incredibly petty, but I miss the old mega-churches where I could sit in the back row and take in the service while I sipped my coffee anonymously. Terrible, I know.
ALL of that said. After much deliberation we decided to stay home instead. But since I had the church bug, Charlie decided we would read a passage of the Bible and discuss.
We started reading Paul....but Charlie takes issue with Paul about a few things, so we quickly thumbed through for something else.
In 8th grade I had sat in on a Bible study about James. And since we were using my 8th grade Bible and I still had the passages marked, we went ahead and read through.
The book of James spends a lot of time talking about Faith. This is a tricky topic for me. I didn't know it was until we started discussing it. But I've been missing faith in my life for a long time now.
I can pretty much trace it back to the loss of a pregnancy about 3 years ago. It seems like my faith went out the window and with it my sense of peace and even a good deal of my confidence.
It's funny, because here we have this beautiful healthy baby and yet, I watch her every breath to make sure it continues.
James says "The testing of your faith produces perseverance."
What about when you lose your faith altogether. I want to have faith again. I want to stop counting her breathes and worrying that tomorrow I may not have her anymore. Can you bring faith back into your life? James says, "...and the prayer offered in faith will make them well."
Is it weird to say I am praying with faith for faith?

Mylicon Induced Coma

Stroller morning....and the night before too. Colic is a pain in the butt. I get a 50/50 response to Mylicon. Sometimes she takes it and falls asleep in pretty short order.....the rest of the time she throws up all over me and continues screaming.
I "skyped" - is that acceptable as a verb? -with my parents last night. I was hoping to show them my smiling happy little buddy, but she had been screaming her guts out all night leading up to it and by the time we finally connected she was asleep in the stroller. It's been a rough morning. Did I mention that?
She woke up at 5 crying and she stopped for a little while, but since we got up she's been screaming and grunting and crying huge alligator tears that break my heart. It's mornings like this that I wonder how I'm going to get through the day, or the week, or the month.....okay...I wonder how I'm going to go on living a normal life in general. Hard to see the forest for the trees. Is it "Hard to see the forest FOR the trees or THROUGH the trees." ??? I should have finished college.
I managed to divert her attention to a shiny nutrigrain bar rapper for a few minutes. At one point I took off my glasses and just sat and cried with her. Charlie doesn't want me crying all over the baby though, so I only did it for a couple of minutes.
Once I established that she was fed and clean and burped, I put her in her crib and pondered driving myself into the local swimming hole. -not really, Mom, if you're reading this. :) But maybe a nice vacation or pedicure or even an hour out of the house on my own would be great.
The potential benefits seemed to outweigh the barf-risk, so I gave her some Mylicon and held her and finally put her down in the stroller while I messaged with my brother. She's finally asleep now.
I'm looking around the house, the kitchen that had been gleaming with cleanliness last night is packed full of the results of an excellent barbecue dinner-what a mess. The laundry is thrown about the house artistically-kind of a post modern decoration technique I'm working on perfecting.
I need a village. Or at least a Taco Bell....the closest one is a 30 minute drive. I'm wondering if she will sleep in the car, or if taking her out of the stroller will start the whole thing up again. I love her so much, but honestly mornings like this make my brief career as a call center supervisor seem golden and covered in chocolate.

Grandpa's Painting

There's a painting in our house that hangs in the living room above the couch. It's a picture of a cabin in the woods and it belonged to my grandpa. My grandpa sadly passed in August last year. It was shortly before Charlie and I left the west coast for the east. And the night before my best friend's wedding.
I hope this doesn't sound awful, but my little buddy was conceived the day of the funeral. Not so much as a response to the funeral, more a product of the bowl of margarita I had with some family members afterwards and the subsequent quick paint job we had to throw on the apartment to get back our full deposit before we moved. Which subsequently we didn't get. (Another story for another time)
So the goofy thing about this, (sorry, there is a point and I'm getting there) my little buddy has this insatiable need to be by this painting. She'll be screaming bloody murder and if I take her over by the painting she will start cooing and smiling and giggling her little half chuckle that sounds more like Beavis than anything right now.
I imagine that Penny is somehow tied to my grandpa. I think sometimes she can see him in the painting. Like it's some kind of portal to heaven and he -and maybe sometimes my grandma Dee- are standing inside the painting making faces at her and comforting her. I'm so sad they didn't get to meet her here on earth and at the very least, I guess it's Grandpa's way of helping me calm down the baby when I'm having a rough morning. It makes me feel less lonely to see her smiling at his painting.

To Shower...or To Blog?

Oh boy. She's finally taking a nap. It's 11:45am and I have a feeling this may be the only nap I get out of her today. So this begs the question...To blog or to shower? Pros and Cons.
Pros for blog: (Which many a quick witted person could guess I actually already decided to do) :) smile. Like most days, I have nowhere to go and no one to talk to and my cute little pee pants doesn't care what I look or smell like, short of her attachment to the smell of milk stained clothing. So there's one for the blog. Two for the blog: my husband's kind of a closet hippie and doesn't care if I never shave my legs. Three for the blog: If I get cleaned up I'm going to feel like I have to go somewhere and in the town I live in, if you go somewhere you have to spend a good amount of money...since I spent the last hour bounce-walking while I transferred funds around in the bank account online, I happen to know spending is not a good idea. Four for the blog: getting showered would mean that I had to part with the red sweat pants, old T-shirt and boring cotton underwear I've been sporting for the last 48 hours. It would be like saying goodbye to the only friends I have in this town.
Okay...blogging pros are taken care of. Now for the cons (Or the pros of showering.)
One for showering: I wouldn't have to put my T-shirt over my head whenever I walk into a room with mirrors. Two for showering: My husband might want to sit by me on the couch again. Three: I would be heeding my mother's advice (The first advice she bestowed upon meeting the new baby) and not "Letting myself go."
I hate this idea that showering and keeping clean and nice looking is doing something for me. That's a load of crap. A nap would be "Doing something for me." A huge chocolate cake would be "Doing something for me." A trip to the beach would be "Doing something for me." You don't have to be showered for any of that stuff. .......
Okay it is now noon. She's making the "Pop-Eye" face again....looks like I have passively made the decision.
Sorry hunny, good thing we have two couches. :) smile.