Depression

Depression is a disorder of mood, so mysteriously painful and elusive in the way it becomes known to the self – to the mediating intellect – as to verge close to being beyond description. It thus remains nearly incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it in its extreme modes.
William Styron, Darkness Visible

I start to get the feeling that something is really wrong. Like all the drugs put together...can no longer combat whatever it is that was wrong with me in the first place. I feel like a defective model, like I came off the assembly line flat-out fucked and my parents should have taken me back for repairs before the warranty ran out.

I grab at everything, I end up with nothing, and then I feel bereft. I mourn for the loss of something I never even had. I am a sick, sick girl.

That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key.
Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation


I’m starting to slide into a cycle of depression again. I started taking anti-depressants once more, but I don’t know how much they help, really. I’m getting that pull-the-covers-over-my-head feeling again and I hate that. I hate how it makes me feel. I hate feeling on the verge of tears all the time. I hate feeling like the inside of my head is a boiling cauldron of rage. Feeling like this makes me want to scoop out my brains. When I’m like this, I can totally understand why some people commit suicide.

It's nearly impossible to explain depression to someone who's never experienced it. My husband has very little patience with me when I get like this, which makes me feel even worse. I feel guilty for feeling so sad. I feel guilty for being so angry all the time. I feel guilty because I know, when I'm like this, I'm making him very unhappy. I just wish I could explain it so that he'd understand, but I don't know if that's possible. He's never been depressed a day in his life and he can't understand why I can't just snap out of it. I can't explain that I don't want to feel this way, but I can't help it, I can't control it. He thinks I can, that I'm just being self-indulgent and whiny. It's very frustrating.

I’ve tried counselling, but I don’t have a THING to be depressed about. I don’t have any major issues, I wasn’t abused as a child, I’m not an alcoholic or the child of one, I don’t have any real crises. So why the fuck do I feel this way? Why can’t I feel better? Why do I always feel like I’m on the outside, looking in at all the normal, well-adjusted people? It fucking sucks.

I feel like I’ve spent my life running away from this feeling. I went to college, but dropped out. I moved back home, I moved back to western Massachusetts, I moved back home, I got married to someone I shouldn’t have married, I moved to Georgia, I got divorced, I went to college again, I moved, I changed jobs, moved again, changed jobs again…. It seems like I get into a really bad place where everything is really bleak and then I think, well, if I only did X, things would be better. And they are for a while, because I have something to take my mind off things. But inevitably, it all spirals downward again and I’m left feeling like I do today – like this sadness inside me has a physical weight. I can feel it pressing down on me, wanting to crush me, wanting to take over my brain and my life and I’m this close to letting that happen.

Sickies

The husband has a cold. Fan-freakin’-tastic. He was staggering around the house this morning, being all he-man, tough guy, I’m coughing up a lung, but by God, I’m going to work. I said, "Stay home." But no. He goes to work, an hour + late. I get a phone call an hour and a half later – “I’m going home.” Good call. If ANYONE can tell me why men are so fucking stubborn, I will gladly buy them a drink/candy bar of their choice. Maybe even both. I’m feeling generous. Ninety-five percent of the time, he’s a great guy. The other five percent of the time, he’s a dumbass.

Of course, the baby (the cutest baby in the world, by the way, just look at her)
is now coughing and has a temperature. And my eyes are burning and my ears hurt and I’m trying to ignore that weird upper lip thing that I always get just before a full-blown cold. I’m of two minds as to whether or not I should go to work, if I do get sick. If I stay home, I’ll keep the baby with me, and that’s not really staying home, that’s chasing around a one-year old while you feel like complete and utter shit. If I go to work, I’ll be miserable, but I’ll get paid. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

If Olivia gets this, her blood sugars will be all over the place. Of course, they are already. I need to tweak her basal rates, but I'm hesitant to do that tonight. She's just come back from four days with her father and since he thinks that Dunkin Munchkins and Lunchables are perfectly healthy fare, she's been running consistantly high. Fun. I need to stop being a putz and just download the freaking pump and meter software onto the PC. I kept putting it off because we were going to reformat, but we've been saying that for a year now and it has yet to happen. Oh, and if anyone out there has any influence with the pump/software people, tell them to make the next release Mac compatible. Tengubeddymudge.


I’m a little pissed. I changed my template and all my links went up in a puff of smoke. Those things are a pain in the arse to put into the code. I know, it’s only copy and paste, but it’s time consuming and boring. God forbid I should be bored.



Oh, and for my birthday, I’m getting myself this:






Isn’t it cool? Guess what it is.

100

My grandmother turned 100 years old on Saturday. She's in a great nursing home and we had a really nice party for her up there. My aunt and cousins flew in from Madrid, her neices came from Montreal and Virginia and one of her nephews came from Ohio for the party. It was pretty cool to see so many relatives. I have a pretty small family, but we still managed to rustle up about 30 people. The music lady at the nursing home even got my grandmother to sing along to You Are My Sunshine and My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean. It was pretty cool. I took some great pictures and now that I finally, FINALLY have my Mac back up and running, I'll try to post one or two.

I don't think I want to live to be 100, though. Not if I'm in the state my grandmother's in anyway. She can't really see or hear, she can't walk, she can't taste much and she can't remember anyone or much of anything. It's sad to see because she was always so alive and interested in so many things. Plus, I feel horribly guilty because I don't got visit her that often. It depresses me. I know - such a lame excuse. I'm a terrible person sometimes.

Sleepovers And A Totally Irrational Rant About Golf

Olivia is going to sleep over at a friend's house tonight. The last time she slept at someone's house, it wasn't a great success. She was supposed to call me at 11 p.m. with her bg reading and didn't. Tonight she will be instructed that she has to call me - this is her last chance. No phone call, no more sleep overs until spring.

I'm a little nervous about it. The family seems very nice and really eager to learn (this is the family that didn't invite O to the b-day party a few weeks back - big misunderstanding, the mother and I have since talked about it). I'm trying to figure out how much information to send without overwhelming them. I think the bare minimum, with every phone number I can think of. Glucagon, too, although that does tend to scare the crap out of some people. We've never had to use it (knock on wood, go outside, turn around three times and spit towards the East) and I stress that any time I hand that big red box to someone. Hopefully they won't freak.

_______________

I'm going to see Harry Potter tomorrow and I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I may be sitting ehre at my desk, typing on the computer, but inside, I'm jumping up and down and shrieking with glee. Glee, glee, glee!
_______________


And now golf.

I hate golf. I think it is a stupid sport and no amount of debate/argument/persuasion/derision will ever get me to think otherwise. I've tried to play it and I suck. Suck like a Dyson vaccuum cleaner. Suck like Ross Perot's giant sucking sound. Suck like the pull of a black hole. Suck. My darling husband, though, thinks it's the best game going. He gets orgasmic over it. It's disgusting. He's going to play on Sunday, hopefully for the last time this season.

What bugs me the most is that it takes So. Freaking. Long. to play. Six, seven hours. It's fucking ridiculous. He's going to drive to Quincy, which is a good hour and half from our ouse, play golf (spit) for six hours, and then drive home another hour and a half. I'm not very good at math, but near as I can figure, he's going to be gone for NINE hours. On Sunday, one of only two days off a week that either of us gets, which means I'm left holding the baby. Literally.

Fanfuckingtastic.

No delivery

Olivia told me at 5:30 last night that she had a no delivery alarm. Ok, fine. She should have had a low reservoir alarm, but she failed to notice this. When I checked the pump's alarm history, it said a low reservoir alarm sounded at 6:30 A.M. The no delivery alarm had been going off since 3:30.

I hate to get pissed at her about her D stuff, but she's 11. She needs to take a little bit of ownership of this disease. If the pump alarms, she needs to tell me so that I can fix it. She has the pump set to vibrate so that it won't disturb class, but she's not paying attention to it when it goes off.

I need to figure out a way to fix this. I don't have time to check her pump several times a day to make sure there are no alarms being neglected. How do I pound it into her head that she has to start paying a little more attention? I'm perfectly willing to change sites, reservoirs, tubing, keep the log book up to date, track trends, figure out new basal rates, count carbs, measure food, whatever she needs me to do. But I don't wear the pump. I don't feel the pump vibrating. I need her to TELL me when it's alarming, I need her to not ignore it.

I know a lot of this is precisely because she's 11 and a flibbertigibbet who wants to chat with her friends and watch tv and play outside and I'm thinking, maybe this pump is making her too normal-seeming. Maybe, instead of being a constant reminder that she has D, it's making it too easy for her to forget that she does, to ignore it, to take it for granted that the pump will take care of itself. Maybe I need to talk to the endo about doing the untethered regimen - although the last time I brought it up, I was roundly poo-pooed by the CDE.

Last night, she was 459 with trace ketones and feeling really shitty. This is going to sound terrible, but maybe that will make her pay attention a little more. I don't want her feeling sick, I just want her to be a little more aware.

And to add insult to injury, she wanted to try a leg site. Not half an hour later, she went to the bathroom and yanked the site out when she pulled down her pants. Ripped out site + high bg = one very miserable girl.

By 11 last night, she was down to 183 and was 70 when she woke up this morning.


________________________

In other news, the guy (Dr. Ferber) who came up with the Cry It Out method of getting your baby to sleep has said that he may be wrong after all. Thanks a lot, asshole. I felt incredible amounts of guilt the few times I left Isobel to cry. I'd stand outside her bedroom door in floods while she sat in her crib, sobbing her little eyes out. Turns out, hey, guess what? You should do what feels best for you. Jerkface.

Random Thursday

I was supposed to write about diabetes yesterday, but I didn't. I didn't because I'm tired. I'm tired of thinking about it, I'm tired of logging, of checking, of changing pump sites, of counting carbs. It's very selfish of me. I have no excuses or reasons, it's just there, a big lump of selfish. I feel like the World's Worst Mother when I get like this.

Random stuff.

I was at Faces, in Northampton, over the weekend and I bought a keychain that plays the final out of the 2004 World Series. Joe Castiglione saying "...and the Boston Red Sox are World Champions, for the first time in 86 years, the Boston Red Sox have won the World Championship, can you believe it?" And it's like it happened last night. I get chills, I get this stupid, shit-eating grin on my face and I think "How many days til pitchers and catchers report?"

My ex is being a dick again. I'm not going to get into it here, but he is a thorn in my side. I need to put his name in the freezer.

I had to get a new stove because mine died. It was probably older than I am, but it realy frosts my butt to have to buy an appliance in a rush. I wanted a nice stove, a cool stove, but no, I got a boring, white Hotpoint thing. Four burners and an oven. What I really wanted was one of these babies:



What I got was this yawnfest:



I tell myself that if I had stove A, I'd be able to cook like Julia Child. Hey, a girl can dream, right? Besides, I have a bad case of kitchen lust. Mine looks like a set for That 70s Show. Baby shit yellow and brown. Looooooovely.

They just opened an IKEA near me. I cannot wait to pay that place a visit. It's a good thing I don't have credit cards.

D-blog day

I'm supposed to be posting about diabetes today, but then I went and read Kerri's blog (http://sixuntilme.blogspot.com/). It's amazing and hard to think of anything to say after reading something so incredible.

Have they gone mad??!

No more Theo. Unbelievably, the guy who had the biggest hand in orchestrating the Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series has been allowed to walk away from Boston. Larry Lucchino decided that he couldn't let Theo manage the players (hello? His title was General Manager. Let him manage), that he had to get involved too. Theo said no, called their bluff and walked away.

So let's get this straight. Next year, we'll probably lose Kevin Millar, which is not a great loss on the field, but a big loss in the clubhouse. We'll probably lose Johnny Damon, a fan favourite and a good, not great, center-fielder with an outstanding bat. He wants more money and a longer contract that the Sox will want to give him, considering his age and injuries this season. We'll lose Bill Mueller, who is arguably one of the best third basemen in the game today. Manny Ramirez wants to be traded - but when doesn't Manny want to be traded? They've lost Josh Byrnes, who's gone to GM Arizona, the first- and third-base coaches are gone, not that I was sorry to see the back side of Dale Sveum. He was a terrible third base coach. They've lost trainers and physical therapists...next we'll hear that they've fired the groundskeeper. And they let Theo Epstein walk away. They need their heads examined. John Henry needs to fire Larry Lucchino, but that will never happen.

I don't know what on earth they're doing over there in the Fens, but I wish they'd knock it off. They're killing me.

Oh wait. This is the Red Sox. This is just business as usual. *sigh*

You LIKE that song?

I totally stole this idea from another blog I surfed to today ( http://badgermeetsworld.blogspot.com/2005/10/songs-im-deeply-ashamed-to-admit-that.html ). So, without further ado, my list:

1. Life In One Day - Howard Jones
2. Never Gonna Give You UP - Rick Astley
3. Everybody Wang Chung Tonight - Wang Chung
4. Wham Rap - Wham
5. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham
6. Club Tropicana - Wham
7. Love Machine - Wham (Yes, I like Wham. Yes, I'm embarassed.)
8. Rock Your Body - Justin Timberlake (I know, I know....)
9. Get Down TOnight - KC & The Sunshine Band
10. Long Tall Glasses - Leo Sayer
11. Sweet Caroline - Neil Diamond
12. Laughter In The Rain - Neil Sedaka
13. Muskrat Love - Captain & Tenille
14. Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band
15. Just Can't Get Enough - Erasure
16. Brandy - Looking Glass
17. Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone - Glass Tiger
18. Escape (The Pina Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes
19. Broken Wings - Mr. Mister
20. Kyrie Elieson - Mr. Mister
21. Died In Your Arms - Cutting Crew
22. I've Done Everything For You - Rick Springfield
23. Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth - Meatloaf
24. Midnight At The Oasis - Maria Muldaur
25. Romeo's Tune - Steve Forbert
26. Break My Stride - Matthew Wilder
27. I Drove All Night - Celine Dion (I really, really, REALLY hate that I like this song)
28. Skater Boy - Avril Lavigne
29. Orinoco Flow - Enya
30. Baby Got Back - Sir Mixalot

Ok, I've stopped at 30, but believe me, my list of cringe-worthy music is nearly endless.

The Letter to The Parents

Well, after calming down a bit (and only a little bit), here's what I wrote to Sam's parents. I haven't sent it yet because I want to talk to O about it first, but as long as she's ok with it, I'm going to mail it to them.

I also called the guidance counsellor at O's school and told him what was going on. He thought the letter was a good idea. I feel someone justified in sending it now, since a professional thinks I should. I was hoping I wasn't just being all mother bear-ish about this.

I hope you notice my restraint and lack of swearing. Had I written this last night it would have started "Dear Ignorant Asshats." Probably not the way to win friends....


Hi,
It was brought to my attention that O wasn’t invited to Sam’s birthday party because you were worried about her having diabetes. I can understand your nervousness. The disease can sound scary when you don’t know much about it.

I do wish you had called and spoken to me about it. I would have been happy to answer any questions you may have had and to discuss how O handles her diabetes. She’s had it for over 8 years now, so it’s old hat for her. She can run her pump and check her sugar and is very self-sufficient. As long as she knows the carb counts of what she’s eating, she’s fine. If carb counts aren’t available, I’m just a phone call away to help her figure them out.

If you had called, I would have made myself available for the party. I would have been happy to stay at the house with her if that would have made you more comfortable. I am just a phone call away and since we also live in Xtown, it wouldn’t have taken much time for me to get there should an emergency have arisen.

O was upset that she didn’t get invited to this party and I was upset for her. We both work really hard to ensure that she leads a normal, everyday kid kind of life and I would have done anything in my power in order for her to have attended Sam’s party. I hate to see her excluded because of this. She shouldn’t be penalized because of her disease.

Thanks,
Julia

I hate people

I don't even know if I can type this coherently, I'm so upset.

O told me today that she didn't get invited to Sam's birthday party because Sam's parents didn't want to deal with O's diabetes. She seemed very matter-of-fact about this when she told me so I didn't say much but when she left the room, I cried. Who DOES that???! All you had to do was CALL me, you fuckwits! I would have talked to you about it, I would have come over and checked her sugar during the night, I would have made it so that she could have had her first sleep-over birthday party and I would have made sure she had fun. I would have done anything. Anything.


I cannot fucking believe that people are such uncaring assholes that they wouldn't invite a kid because she has diabetes. I am very tempted to write a note to Sam's parents and tell them, minus all the swearing, that I would have been happy to discuss any concerns they may have had, that all they would have had to do was to call me.

O was the only girl from her class who didn't get invited. It's like a knife in my heart just thinking about it.

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

Apologies to Al Franken.

I am 99.9% sure that The Boy lied to me about something he bought.

He went to Bob's Stores (sporting goods) for a pair of running shoes on Saturday. When we left to go to the Foo Fighters concert, I poked thru the bag that was in the back seat and found a receipt for golf balls (who the hell knew golf balls cost $50?!! Not me, that's who), a watch ($15), a $50 golf shirt, $45 wind pants and the running shoes ($90!). All in all, it was a total of $241. I asked him about it and he said that it must have been D's stuff. We had borrowed D's truck so we could pick up a futon (in the pouring rain, but that's another rant for another day. Maybe.), so I half-accepted this answer. However, he had the watch on his wrist, which I thought was odd. He said D gave it to him. Uh huh.

Today I'm coming home from WW and I'm thinking about this because it's been bugging the crap out of me for days. I went into the trunk of his car and there was the bag, still with the receipt in it. The receipt was dated Saturday. The Boy got the truck from D on Friday. Soooo, how did the receipt and bags get into the truck on Saturday when The Boy had had the truck all weekend?

The Boy is still insisting that this is D's stuff, that he has no idea how the bags got into his trunk, nor why that receipt is dated 10/15 5:11 p.m. (the time that The Boy called me FROM Bob's Stores to say he was on his way home).

WTF, buddy? Just friggin' admit that you bought the shit. Why lie about it? Do you think I'm an idiot?

It's not even so much that he bought all this crap, although it pisses me off because we really can't afford it, he doesn't need golf balls (Hello? October. No more golf) and he really doesn't need another shirt, especially a $50 shirt.

Oh, and he's pissed because I went into the trunk of his car. Well, don't LIE to me and then I won't have to treat you like a four year-old. Jackass.

And now all the warning systems in my head are blaring because this is what my ex-husband started doing to me, too, towards the end of our marriage.

As he so often says to me: Whatever.

Obsessive?

I'm getting worried about O She is obsessively checking her blood sugars. Yesterday, between 7 a.m. and noon, she checked 12 times. A couple of checks were only three minutes apart. She says that she always feels low, but she's not low, she's usually nicely in range. I don't know what to do about this. I talked to her endocrinologist the other day, who suggested an appointment with their counsellor. Unfortunately, the cousellor isn't available until Dec. 7th. At the beginning of the year, I chalked it up to nerves because she'd just started in middle school and just started checking her sugars in class, but it's only getting worse. She was checking 4 - 5 times, then it bumped up to 7 - 8 and yesterday and the day before was 12. There's no need for her to check that much.

I'm hoping I can convince the endo to get her on to a continuous glucose monitoring system. It has a sensor that goes under the skin and alarms when your blood sugar goes too high or too low. It takes a reading every 5 minutes. I've left a message for the endo and when she calls back, I'm going to run this by her. Beside the fact that O is running thru (expensive) test strips like there's no tomorrow, she's got to be missing class time by checking like this. She does it in her seat, but it's still a distraction. I hope to god I can convince them to give her this and that the insurance company will agree with me so I don't have to try to scrape up the money somehow. I'm sure they're outrageously expensive since the technology is so new. I also called the company that's making this new CGMS to see if I can get any advice on how I might finagle one of these beauties.

When I called my husband to talk to him about it (because I'm upset and worried about her), he said he thinks that O is just bored at school and doing this because it's like a toy. Right, after 8 years, I'm sure she's still fascinated with checking her blood sugar. He said she just wants to eat glucose tabs, so she's checking in the hope that she's low. He thinks I'm overreacting by calling the endo and he started doing his typical not-letting-me-talk thing and dismissing everything I say with a "whatever". Thanks for the support there, dear. Jerk.

I wish the endo would hurry up and call me.

The morning rush

It’s Murphy’s Law that when you’re in a rush or it’s pouring rain, you’re going to get delayed and spend time outside.

This morning, I was woken up abruptly by my husband. He can never just wake me up, he always has to give me a jab and say “Hey! It’s 6 o’clock! Time to get up!” To be fair, I am NOT a morning person and if he tried the soft and gentle approach, I’d just go back to sleep. But I still want to smack him.

Ten past six, I stumble into the shower. It’s always a debate. Do I wash my hair or not wash my hair? If I wash it, I will leave the house with a wet head because a.) it’s long and b.) I hate fussing with it and c.) who the hell has time to do their hair? Not me. If I don’t wash it, by noon it looks like a drunken monkey clinging to my head. So, wash.

Twenty past six, race downstairs to get the baby’s clothes out of the dryer, move the wet stuff into the dryer and put in a load of towels. How can three people and a baby go thru so many towels? It’s unbelievable. If you went into my bathroom on any given day, you’d swear there were at least 6 or 7 people living in my house. Towels hanging like Tibetan prayer flags. Draped like a Bedouin tent. That’s another rant for another day, however.

Six thirty. O comes down to the cellar and has the baby in her arms. Oh great. I was hoping to get dressed and get her bottles made before she woke up, but no, there she is, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Take the basket of clothes and the baby upstairs, plunk both on the bed. The baby starts to whine until she discovers the basket of clothes, then it’s party time. And people wonder why I don’t fold clothes.

Wonder of wonders, I have an outfit that actually matches. I do have to wear black pumps with brown trousers, which bugs me, but it looks ok. My hair, meanwhile, resembles a tangled mass of brown spaghetti. Always a good look.

Six forty. Wrestle I into her clothes. This is one child who does NOT like to be dressed. She much prefers naked and makes these whimpering, distressed cries while giving me the “Why do you torture me so, mother?” look. I used to feel guilty at that look. Now I just laugh at her.

Six fifty. This is not a good time to be logging O’s blood sugars, but I haven’t done it for three days. If I don’t log, I can’t track trends and if I don’t track trends, I can’t make adjustments to her insulin pump. The pump only holds a certain number of readings, though, and three days is, apparently, one day too many. Bugger. I really need to download that software onto my computer….

Seven. Put some rice, peas and chicken into a little container. Ditto for applesauce and rice cereal, ditto again for some baked beans. Make up three bottles. Throw them into I’s diaper bag. Bring diaper bag and my purse out to the car. Grab the two outdoor cats’ bowls and bring them back in with me. Put some leftover pasta (yum, with sundried tomatoes, artichokes, sauteed mushrooms and onions) into a container and grate some paremsan cheese on top. Grab a yoghurt. Grab I. Bring all of this out to the car. As I’m putting I in the car, I realize I’ve left the back door open and no sooner do I think “Damn, don’t let the dog get out,” what do I see streaking by me in a black and white blur? Thankfully, Dog thinks that the car is fanTAStic, so when she sees the back door open, she hops right in. Shut the door on the dog, go back inside and get her leash. Come back out and retrieve the dog, who does NOT want to get out of the car. Bring the dog inside. Feed the dog. Get my coat. Realize that yet again, my husband has not only forgotten to take out the trash, he’s forgotten to drag the wheelie bin to the bottom of the driveway.

Heave a big sigh. Take the trash bag out of the kitchen bin. Bring it outside, making sure to shut the door this time. Put it in the wheelie bin. Wheel it to the bottom of the drive as it starts to pour rain. Lovely. See why I don’t do my hair? Get in the car and leave.

On the up side, I lost NINE pounds at weigh in this week. Go me!

Aha!

So I'm new at this whole blogging thing (no way, Julia, y'don't say?). I just disovered how to do a title. I was jealous of those with better blogging skills than I have.

That said...I'm still jealous of the blogging skills of some people. I can't seem to think of a thing to say most of the time. The words definitely don't fall off my fingers, rather they stumble and trip and crash into things most of the time. Rather like myself, now that I think of it. It's probably a good thing that I haven't told anyone that I have this blog - they'd all laugh and point and I'd be suitably embarassed.

On to something completely different....

I started Weight Watcher's last week. I did it once before and lost 40 pounds. That's a considerable amoutn of weight. I put it all back on, though, so I'm at it again. I get very bored with the counting and the tracking and the feeling of deprivation. I really like food. I love to cook and I love to eat well. I'm not chowing down potato chips and soda all day long, but put a filet mignon and some pan-roasted fingerling potatoes and grilled asparagus and I will happily clean my plate. Top it off with something decadent like tiramisu or creme brulee and fuggeddit. Eight thousand calories later and I'm rolling out the door.

But I'm going to keep plugging away at this WW stuff. I don't want to weigh what I weigh. I am not deluding myself that I'm going to be 125 lbs, but getting down to 145, 150 would be very, very nice. And that means some serious stick-to-it-iveness, something I've never been good at.

Aaaarrrrrgh!!

I reached down to brush what I thought was a crumb from my chest and what do I find? A big ass bug. No idea what kind because I was too busy hopping up and down and hollering.

This is what I hate about living out in the sticks. Besides the fact that it takes 20 minutes to get anywhere, there are bugs. Jesus, are there bugs. Big, scary-looking June bugs that beat themselves against the screens. Crickets. The crickets have invaded my cellar. They sound lovely when they're outside, chirruping away at night, atmospheric and relaxing. They sound really fucking loud when they're in your bedroom. You can't find them, but you can hear them and you just know they're going to hop on you just as you start to fall asleep. You want to see someone go from asleep to flailing around like a lunatic, let a cricket jump on their face, then sit back and watch the ensuing hilarity. Just make sure you stay out of the way of the thrashing arms and legs.

Worst of all are the spiders. I never knew there were so many kinds of spiders in New England. Little black ones, tiny tan ones, big, threatening-looking brown and black striped jobs and the ones I hate the most: Daddy Long Legs. They look like alien robots. They get on the ceiling and just crawl around in their hurky-jerky way and I sit there and watch them, paralyzed. When I yell for my husband to come and kill it (feeling like Bill Cosby the whole while - Kill it!!!), he just laughs at me. I've become better at smashing the things. And I know, I know, it's bad luck to kill a spider. But I think the spider is the one with the bad luck. If you don't want to die, don't come in my house.

It's funny. When I'm lying in bed, I can think of a million witty, insightful or weird things to say but put me in front of a keyboard and blank screen and poof! It's all gone. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

I married a younger man. A much younger man. He's 25. I'm 38. It's been an interesting 5 years, let me tell you. Younger men are great because, well, the stamina thing is nice. And man, are they eager. For the most part, The Boy is a great person - responsible and kind and funny. But sometimes, man, he acts his age. He becomes the typical selfish guy. Maybe all guys are like this. I know most of the men I've dated in the past have been like this, so maybe it's a guy thing. I don't know. I just know there are days that I wonder what the hell I was thinking.