Anne Nahm

I don’t feel like I’m breaking with reality, but I do have that spacey feeling lately, like I’m in the back bedroom at a party, and for some reason I’ve tied a necktie around the doorknob and have decided to creep slowly into a strange dark room and swing my free hand through the air until I find my coat.  Don’t worry – I’m tethered!  Necktie!  Just a little spelunking.

I suspect one of the reasons is that the baby is 14 months old now.  A year must be how long it takes my body to recover enough so that it could consider getting pregnant again without losing its damn mind.  You’ll note that I (Me! The one holding the tie) am certainly not considering another pregnancy.  It is simply the biology of my body (that creature in the dark, barking her shin and cursing), finally getting to the place where I am (we are?) no longer (as much of a) sleep deprived lunatic.

Here are some ways my body has decided to let me know it has recovered:

*Periods!
*Leg hair!  Growing like a chia pet.
*Sudden interest in painting my toenails.
*Coffee works a little!  To make me happy (instead of merely keeping me from falling face forward into the carpet).
*Wearing high heels occasionally. And not immediately tripping because whoa! Those ligaments aren’t quite tightened up there yet, Anne.

Also, my brain has been asking me all these Job Interview questions, and I have been sweating it out.  Dude!  I know the right answer.  But when you ask like that, I freeze up.

One of the stupidest and also painful Job Interview episodes this week was while reading this link from Jezebel, which in turn links to the NSFW Playboy online article When Your Breasts Go Out of Style.  I like Jezebel, because I can read something that pisses me off and while I usually point my finger and stutter and then scream into a pillow, usually someone in comments is able to convey what I wanted to say.  But, you know, using words.

So I was looking at Playboy,  I could possibly get my boobs to look like those pictures if I were photographed under water.  Or naked on a space station in zero gravity.

And I know that looking to a spank magazine to feel good about yourself is like falling into the stupid well and complaining about the lack of smarts at the bottom.

But it happened anyway. This Job! Interview! moment: If I am not listed in any category of attractive boobs, do my boobs exist anymore?  Am I attractive?  Or do I need to turn off the lights when I have sex now? I felt so embarrassed that I had been walking around with these curdled milk type boobs that are clearly past their 20 year-old expiration date.

And here was kind of the worst part: I’m fairly sure I know intellectually that whether I am attractive or not to someone else, I should still be able to be attractive to myself.  Or really what I mean is: ain’t nobody should take my O-card.  Here, let me try again, since I’m apparently having difficulty owning up to this:  I should be able to continue to have orgasms and sex even if my tits look like prunes and my vagarnicle looks like an old man who has been lost at sea.  There!

But somehow, while trying to locate my 35 year-old boobs in Playboy, I was as lost as I had been in 8th grade – standing in the mall in front of one of those cursed You Are Here! Maps and near tears of desperation, all WTF is Sam Goody?!?!  I will die if I don’t get my hands on some Def Leppard! Except now the thought that was tied to that bewildered feeling this time was I think they can take away my O-card, because as I’m patting myself down to check, I seem to have left it in my other pants pocket.

So here is how my eardrum bursts*.

Allergy season arrives.  Whether it be a year in which there is all out Bacchanalia orgy in the plant world, or it is a prudish year, there is always some bits of pollen and flotsam being generated.

A gentle wind blows.

At some point, I go outside.  And the gentle wind blows on me.

Meanwhile, thousands of years of selective breeding have resulted in the Awesome Package of Anne you see before you.  For some reason, my package also Darwined itself an immune system that don’t take no shit from nobody.  Pollen?  I KILL YOU POLLEN!!!!  That is what my immune system says.  And when it says it, it doesn’t just politely roll down the window of the Rolls Royce it happens to be driving in to whisper I will kill you, pollen, and also, do you have any Grey Poupon? Oh no.  It yells a lot, and spits at pollen’s feet, and tears its hair, and screams I will boil your bunny, because this immune system will not be ignored, pollen!

Things start out pretty minor, like me sneezing until I see stars.  My nose and mouth itch, and although I want to be all ladylike and merely give the former a blot with a Kleenex and be done, the more I blot at it, the worse it itches.  The worse it itches, the more I rub, because I CAN TAKE YOU, ITCH!  I AM THE BOSS HERE.

I end up in masturbation like throws of frenetic nose wiping. Like have you ever seen a dog try to lick itself, and it gets so excited that it scoots around in a circle?  That is me itching my own nose.  I rub (making this hideous fap-fap-faping noise) until I chafe the skin.  My nose weeps in response.  Then everything is lubricated by loads of snot.  Then I blow my nose, and my ears pop.  And I rub my tongue on the roof of my mouth like I’m Mr. Ed and some asshole is trying to make me look like I talk by putting peanut butter on my soft palate.  Like I’m people!  I make that tongue itching face,  and rub my nose, and weep snot, and my eyes swell up.

And then like any rational person, I start taking allergy medicine.

It doesn’t help at all.  Every morning, I wake up with my eyes swollen shut, and my nose crusted with boogers, and generally feel like I slept next to a dead body in a ditch full of pet dander and cattail fluff.  After two or three days, I get tennis elbow from all the nose wanking.

So, three days later, I say, Bis Allergy Mebicine Boesn’t Boo Shib. So I quit taking it.

And OMIGOD.  Apparently the meds were the only thing keeping my head from exploding.  Whoops.

The next morning I wake up and my immune system is shitting itself in panic.  My ear canals swell shut, as does my nose, the whites of my eyes, and my butt.  I spend the day feeling like I’m wearing a meat helmet.  In a desperate attempt to get rid of the dizziness and hearing loss, I  attempt to squeegee out my ear so I can hear again.

This pisses my ear off so fantastically that my ear canal swells as I’m squirting water in it and my squeegee gets stuck in my ear.  It is kind of reminiscent of those porn shows they do in Amsterdam where a chick holds a banana in her… uhm… personal banana holder.  Which as I re-read that last sentence, I guess, here in America, we call it a vagina.  Anyway, the Amsterdam audience is supposed to be impressed, because:  Wow!  that is a tight/muscle-y/something banana holder that can hold a banana so it doesn’t fall out! Anyway, that’s what my ear feels like, clamped onto the squeegee and all.  Like vaguely impressive and also disgusting that it could swell up and hold a foreign object and prevent gravity from doing its job.

At this point, I know I am in trouble, but damn if I could even see the phone, let alone get it together enough to make an appointment with a doctor and also find someone to also take care of my kids for that exact moment in the week.  Instead, I  decide that surely allergy season will end tomorrow.

Around bedtime, I hear my own pulse in my ear.  I know what that means, because this has happened to me since I was a wee little child:  Ear infection.  In fact, I remember being less than five years old and telling my mom about the “butterfly flapping its wings in my ear” which to this day is how I think about it.  Stupidly, the worse it gets, the more I am convinced that it will be better by tomorrow.

And then, of course, stabby pain that wakes me up in the middle of the night and lots of drippy ear the next morning.  Annnd then I go to the doctor.  Who can’t even see in my ear because it is swollen and crusted up.  He takes my word for it that my eardrum might have ruptured, writes me a script, and looks at me like I’m a hot dog someone left in the sun.

I am now on antibiotics for the eardrum, steroids for my ear, topical antibiotics for the staph infection inside my nose, steroids for my lichen sclerosis which is flipping the eff out, and my period decided to come back this week.  I did feel better after taking antibiotics for two days, and so I took the kids to the pool.  Which is where I got an antibiotics-related sun rash on all exposed parts of my body.  Right about now, taking birth control pills makes me laugh, because:  AS IF.

* To Stimey & Sara, who asked about last post.

Here’s the damage a year after having my third child.  Currently weighing 72 pounds less than I did a week before I gave birth.

And 52 pounds less than I did the week after birth.

This makes me happy!  So happy I had to break out of my normal blue-gray-green t-shirt wearing fanaticism and go buy something orange.  I don’t know why.  Also, a new bra.  Yay!

Somebody earlier accused me of not actually having a bellybutton, since the camera is always covering it.  Which made me laugh and retort, “chestnuts are lazy!  I invented the question mark!”  Again, I don’t know why.  Especially since talking, as a mode of reply to an email, is hardly effective.

Oh, bellybutton.  It was once so perfectly O, if you pushed it, the operator would answer.  Now it’s an old Indian arrowhead.  You might find it out in the dirt while walking, and your dad would say, “Man!  That could be a hundred years old.”    (If you and your dad do find it out in the woods, though, would you pick it up?  Because either I’m there with it, and I don’t like dirt, or something horrible has happened to separate me from it.  And as old and broke down as that navel is, I’d like it returned to me before squirrels eat it.)

The only possible answer here, of course, is that bellybutton gave me three beautiful kids.  Which, yes, it did.  But my husband also has three beautiful kids. And a belly you could bounce quarters off of.  And sometimes we do.  And whoever misses has to drink beer from the other person’s bellybutton.  Which, for my part, used to be like lapping up a shot.  Also:  Ticklish!  But is now more like trying to consume an ice slushie in a soggy paper cone, all while sitting in a half inflated bounce house.  Which, while perhaps not exactly sexy in the traditional sense, at least keeps things interesting.

Anyway, Whooohoooo! 72 pounds lost!

ETA:  More weight loss photos are tagged as Anne Pics HERE.

I’m a pissy little bitch over here in Anneland these days.  Welcome to Anneland!  Let me stamp your passport.  *whapwhapwhapwhapwhapwhapwhapwhapWHAPWHAPWHAP*

I am gaining weight.  It makes me so mad, but here’s the thing:  Yesterday afternoon, I was trying to make some lunch for my sick 4-year-old and my sick 10-month-old, and as I’m moving from stove to fridge, there is suddenly a tiny wailing human who pulls up and stands behind me, fists full of my pants leg, firmly attached to the back of my knees.  PS:  I later that day found out this human has pink eye, a sinus infection, and an ear infection.

As I am carefully shuffling to the fridge so as not to knock Ye Olde Town Crier down (and thus make her go from wailing to outraged screaming) she is actually cruising, taking these goose-stepping, Frankensteinesque steps behind me.  Rah! She says.  Aeghhh!

The 4-year-old, who demanded the mac & cheese for lunch, announces she does not really want mac & cheese at all.

The baby gets louder so I can hear her over the 4-year-old.

The 4-year-old starts shouting so I can’t hear over the baby she DOES NOT WANT MAC & CHEESE AFTER ALL.   GOT THAT, MOM?  GOT IT?  I WANT…. (Baby: ahhh!)… UHHMMMM… (Ahhh!)…. UHHHHM.  (timer beeps for noodles, but there is no way I can transport boiling water in present situation)  MOM?  MOM ARE YOU LISTENING?  (Ahh!)  MOM?  IT BEEPED!  IT BEEPED, MOM. WHAT ELSE IS FOR LUNCH?  I WANT… UHM…. (ahhh!)

Is the screaming coming from the baby anymore or from inside my own head?  After two weeks of this same basic scenario, it is hard to tell. But at this stage yesterday, I was pretty sure that I wanted someone to make me something.  A glass of wine.  But baring being stoopid drunk by 1:00 in the afternoon, I just really wanted someone else to make dinner, so I didn’t have to think about it, or make it, or clean up after it.  I wanted someone to take care of me.  Which is how I’ve been feeling all month.  Which is why, when the baby pulls on my pant legs, my pants no longer threaten to fall off.

My mom, who left at the end of January after being my sole babysitter (and giving me two days notice) is still gone with no plans to return.  What’s worse is that I’m kind of an asshole for being mad at her, since funeral arrangements are hardly like sneaking away with your pool boy lover to the Caribbean.  I am worried and sad for her.  But also?  My eye twitches when I think about how stupid I am for not having back up child care.  I am up at 6:30 every morning and with kids until 8:00 every night, and there is no time in between that I have time away from all three.  I am typing this with a kid in my lap!  And just to underline my asshole status:  very angry at my mom, even though I am unjustified, does not stop me from stepping outside so I can stomp my foot and curse under my breath and plot petty revenge fantasies like I am 14 instead of 35.   STOOPID.  And angry.  And thanks to my recent overfishing of the Drive Thru Burger and Swedish Fish population, jelly bellied and mortified, too.

ETA:  Wrong thing I laughed at this week:  2010 Winter Olympics – you win some,  you luge some.

Everything has gone pink-assed crazy over here for everyone outside my immediate family.  I am running hither and yon with casseroles and cupcakes and condolences and congratulations and furrowed, worried brows when people talk, with lots of head nodding and knee patting and there-thereing and trying not to look at my watch.  Do you care?  No you don’t.  And everybody around here is way too traumatized for me to say, “yeah I know you’re hurting, but could you watch my kids for like twenty minutes?  Because the last time I had a chance to pee by myself was in January.”  PS:  My mom was home for two days.  After being gone two weeks.  And she’s leaving again this afternoon.  Wheeee.

So since I’m feeling full of piss and vinegar (which is evidently what happens when you don’t get a chance to unload your kidneys until they pickle*) here’s some pictures of me in those jeans, seen previously here (September):

And yesterday morning!

I’m a little dismayed that after losing 70 pounds (weighing from the week before I gave birth) that life is pretty much the same.  I have yet to find myself riding in a red convertible with David Lee Roth blaring and me suddenly blonde.  Nor am I wearing make-up and feeling myself up all the time, which is kind of how I imagined it would be.

In fact, I’m kind of struggling with the fact that my critical eye just moved from my belly to other places I’m feeling too insecure to name right this minute.   And I’d like to put a bow on that idea for you, but guess what?  I’m taking care of my own children this week, which means my time is up!

* That would’ve been a better line if I’d made some reference to drinking wine, for the vinegar part.  But I don’t want to mislead you.  I haven’t been drinking.  And to pretend like I was, and then post pictures where I was losing weight seemed like a bitchy thing to do.  If I drink, I chub out about three seconds later.  And not chub like seeing Brad Pitt slide down a greased pole, but rather like a bowl of yeasty dough in a warm kitchen.  Mmmmm.  Chubby.