Guess who's back?

Back again.

Phantom Poop.

Tell a friend.

This is the funniest damned thing I've seen all week.
Thanks, Gypsy, for sharing.



http://youtube.com/watch?v=T4_MsrsKzMM

Although I'd lie and say that my blog has aspirations of becoming some great memoir, it's honestly just a sounding board for my thoughts and life. In light of recent events, it's become evident that in order for me to continue my journal in such a tradition, I'm going to have to make a lot of my upcoming entries "Friends Only" with an added filter to keep from sharing dirty laundry with the world. Even though I'm severely pissed at a specific person, the hurt he's causing has to do with people that I love and respect very much and they don't deserve to have me broadcasting our struggles publicly.

Anyway, being that my blog is exported to a few networking sites, I really wanted to just give a "heads up" to those remote readers who tune in from time to time to let you guys know what's going on. If you'd like to be included, you can always sign up for a free livejournal.com account and I'll put you on the filter list, but I can't imagine anyone being that hardcore of a fan of my ramblings.

Just for the sake of clarification, Greg and I are still doing wonderfully and he's been incredibly supportive and loving through everything. He's encouraging without being enabling, he lets me sound off to him without letting me become obsessed, he's keeping me in a healthy realm and I'm very very grateful he's in my life right now. We'll be okay.

Fuck.

Pissed.
Hurt.

Sobbing.
GODDAMMIT.

Devastated.

Changed. Everything's changed.
I wish I could unlearn it.
I wish I could go back to blissful oblivion.

Fuck.
FUCK

FUCK YOU.

Appalled.
Devastated.

Confused.
[:::Nods:::]
confused.

Fuck.
FUCK.

Goddammit.

I know I'm probably crazylate on this, but ColorWar 2008 invites people to find a picture from when they were younger and recreate it as they're older to some really cool results.

Here are some of my favorites:















NOTE TO SIBLINGS: WE WILL BE DOING THIS AT AN UPCOMING GATHERING! BE PREPARED!

My darling Chloe,

A lot of utter bullshit has happened to your mommy in her life. While some of it snuck up on her, a lot of it was instigated and perpetuated by herself [for reasons she'll explain much later]. Whatever the case, there's been a lot of crap to wade through and thus, she's turned into this hyper-self-critical, ever-analytical, worrisome, obsessive Woman In Recovery who dwells so deeply in her need to "fix" every single aspect of her life - both past and present - that it's hard for her to sit back and just enjoy the ride for once.

However, no matter what anyone has ever said to her or about her, no matter what anyone has ever done to her, no matter what she berates herself about and doubts in herself, no matter what crazy instance the Universe hurls into her immediate life that throws off her center and serenity, all it takes is for you to look up into her eyes and smile and she feels all the validation she will ever need.

Your first six months have easily been the happiest of my entire life. Between you and your father, I cannot fathom any human receiving more love within her family as I and it makes me work harder every day to stay worthy of such a divine blessing. Thank you for everything you are and everything you let me be.

Happy Half-Birthday, Bear!

Much love and light,
Mommy

Being that I honestly thought I'd never get married and have children [much less, be happy with that conventional lifestyle], I didn't really stop to consider this whole name changing tradition as a reality for myself. Nonetheless, when Greg proposed last year, I just slid into the notion that I'd be hyphenating my last name... and nothing has occupied my mind with such long-standing intensity as that choice. I've thought about it every single week and talked about it with Greg for months now.

The thing is, hyphenation just makes so much sense. No matter how long I'm married to Greg, I'm never going to be a Schultz, much like he's never going to transform into a Pardue. We're merging the two families together to start our own sect, so why not hyphenate?

Well, first there's the argument that everyone's doing it and it's pathetically trendy. Yeah, gross. And then there's the question of "What if your child marries someone with a hyphenated last name as well?" (So, let's say she becomes Chloe Pardue-Schultz-Zeta-Jones.) That could get really complicated very quickly.

Okay, the truth behind my dilemma is not my personal arguments with name-changing, but it is, in fact because I care so deeply for Greg. Even though he agrees with my points about hyphenation making sense and two people in a couple should meet in the middle on every front, he still carries a good deal of tradition with him that he values. Just as I would never pressure him to change his name, he won't ask me to change mine, but I know that changing my last name to just "Schultz" would make him very very happy and I can't pretend that his emotions on the subject don't affect me at all. He's resigned himself to the fact that I'm hyphenating, but, in our conversations about it I can tell that he still believes that it's somehow "keeping one foot out the door" by not changing my name altogether.

Here's a stripped-down version of one such conversation, for example's sake.

Him: I would be really happy if you took my name.

Me: But I am taking your name.

Him: You know what I mean. If you made my last name your last name.

Me: But your last name will be a very big part of my last name.

Him: But you're still hanging on to your family's name.

Me: Well, you're still hanging on to your family's name.

It gets even more cyclical and redundant from there and the frustrating thing for both of us is that even when I shoot logic holes into the tradition aspect of his argument, it doesn't change his sentiment about the situation.

Which is really what my worry and concern boils down to in the first place. If I was to look to logic to influence all my decisions, I wouldn't get married at all, so obviously I've accepted human sentiment as an active participant in my decision-making process. I stand strongly behind my decision to hyphenate my last name as a sign that I respect and treasure my family and background yet want to integrate a life with someone new into my identity. This makes sense to me. This feels right in my heart.

Ideally, I'd like for Greg to do the same so that we've met in the middle and can genuinely share the same last name as a family, but just as my name change is my prerogative, his name is his. While I constantly reconsider my hyphenation choice out of worry that Greg will somehow grow to resent me for it (although he swears it's not nearly as big a deal as I've made it), I also know that I cannot disregard my personal values for someone else. Compromising is one thing, as all healthy relationships have to incorporate this practice at some point [and I think that's what hyphenation is, isn't it?], but to totally disregard or ignore one's feelings on anything is never healthy as someone will always feel short-changed.


I think this is going to have to be another lesson about living my life and not trying to control others' reactions.





* Can I just say - for the record - how nice it is to be in a relationship where a disagreement over a last name is the biggest problem between us? Seriously, what a luxury.

In other news:

~ Chloe's having her Half Birthday tomorrow. I promise not to get hyper-sentimental and drivelly [agaaaain], but we're planning a little mini-party for her with just the three of us and some cake. Pictures to come, of course.

~ We're inching slowly toward order in the new house. While we still have a few here-and-there boxes, we're hoping to have everything sorted by this evening and can start with the side projects this week, such as staining the dining room set and building an entertainment center. We're hoping to have a small open-house get-together (we're thinking a Bring Your Own Beef party where we grill and provide drinks and side dishes) for our friends and family toward the end of the summer, but I'm sure that with the upcoming wedding, various visitors coming to town, the sex-toy/lingerie/bachelorette party my sister's planning, the bachelor party I've commissioned Greg's friends to, and general family-style mayhem, something like that may not happen for a while. However, as the house comes together, I promise to update with pics.

~ Mom's coming home from Africa in a couple days which means I'm spending this afternoon trying to restore a little order to her house. Incidentally, she's arriving a few days before our family's annual July 4th Extravaganza, so I feel inclined to print out flyers for distribution and pull some weeds in the front yard and kinda tidy up a bit to ease my mom's stress level upon her arrival as best as I can.

~ So, we've all heard about this supposed Pregnancy Pact by now, which is mind-boggling and temper-flaring and faith-challenging and indicative of the Second Coming and all that noise. (I love it when people blame movies and Jamie Lynn Spears for their kids being complete idiots, by the way. I can't wait until Chloe gets to go to school with these people's kids. Can't. Wait.) But what I really love is when the media does something boneheaded and then blames the media for making a mistake. For instance, this whole "pregnancy pact" thing got started with the principal of Gloucester High saying that it seemed too coincidental and that these girls were high-fiving each other more than being freaked out about it, and the media just ran screaming their own conclusions that really sounded more like high school rumors than hard evidence. (I love that one report stated that one girl had supposedly slept with a homeless guy. How 10th-grade-Girls-bathroom is that?! Did the principal find it scribbled on the wall in lipliner?) Then, as they took the time to actually investigate the situation, it turned out that only 8 girls were actually pregnant and nobody had even really heard about something like a pact and the principal might be a little bit of a giant wank and might have no idea what he's talking about in the first place. So they blame "the media" for causing confusion when technically, they were the ones that broke the false story to begin with.
Ahhhkay...
It's like when paparazzi and media sources like People and Inside Edition won't leave celebrities alone and then get on the air and say "The media's gone too far!! Why can't they just leave people alone!?!" I don't know, why can't YOU leave people alone? It's like they think if they call everyone else the "media" then it somehow negates them as such as well. ::sigh:: I don't understand.

(I mean, I know I tend to obsess and maybe beat myself up a lot for my faults, but Christ, at least I'm willing to admit when I'm just wrong. It's called "humility". I tend to consider myself a little emotionally immature as I only just started having healthy relationships in the last couple years and haven't been practicing sanity as long as most people, but "humility" really seems like a painfully elementary notion to me that everyone else should just "get". It seems second nature to me that humility is a great characteristic that isn't indicative of weakness and makes you a better person and all that and I'm recently becoming shocked at how many people out there still don't effing get it. And[, to further abandon my pursuit of humility momentarily,] maybe I'm not quite as emotionally retarded (I mean that term literally, by the way) as I'd assumed.

I know..
"The proud man can learn humility, but he will be proud of it."
- Joseph Priestly

"Humility is a strange thing. The minute you think you've got it, you've lost it."
- E.D. Hulse

... Back to taking my own inventory instead of others'.)

Note to Self: Under NO CIRCUMSTANCE should a pregnant woman register for wedding gifts without immediate supervision.

This realization comes about as I am scrolling through my selections at Crate and Barrel and realizing that maybe my hormones weren't quite as covert as I enjoy believing because seriously... what the hell?

Which leads me to the

Other Note to Self: Just because they make it in brushed nickel, doesn't mean it's a good idea in general.


-------------------------------------------------

In other news, Kanye West is whining again and this time I'm laughing because his show got pwned (as those crazy kids like to say) by Pearl Jam. Aaaaahhhahahahaha.

Because we've been able to pay rent on two places at once, we've been in no hurry to get out of the apartment completely in our move to the house, which might've saved our sanity more than we can recognize at this point. However, this has resulted in our moving process taking an entire month of running carloads of various posessions and sorting and discarding and all the extraneous moving yackety schmack.
Today Greg finished cleaning the apartment [in a final desperate attempt to salvage our deposit, although with the chaos Benny wreaked on the blinds, I'll be shocked if we don't somehow owe the company more money] and I'm secretly elated I didn't have to go back.

Ugh, it does get exhausting to be so insanely sentimental all the damned time. A few weekends ago we were gathering and packing in between keeping an eye on the bear at the house when I found myself alone in the apartment with my inevitable reminiscience tugging at my sleeve.

This room is where I first went into labor.
This is where we put our first Christmas tree.
Remember that crotchety old man who sold us the bed and helped us move it in?
Remember we sat on the balcony last summer and talked for hours while the sun set on the lake?

I sighed, exasperated at my inherent need to overanalyze every situation. "It's just a space," I told myself. "It's just an apartment that we used for a year."

This is where you slept on the crappy futon when your massive belly wouldn't let you sleep.
Remember the day Greg came in and couldn't contain his smile when he got the new job?
Remember when he first surprised you with lilies from that florist up the road?

I always tell people I'm not as giddy and excited about the wedding as I am about the marriage, which is really true. The wedding will be special and meaningful, but it's definitely not going to be the "best day of my life"; I hope there's more to stick around for after that. I'm excited about getting old with Greg and watching our kids grow up and having family vacations and watching each other grow and change. I love sitting around talking about where we want to travel or what dreams we have for our personal careers and I'm excited about the life we're going to have together.

This is where you giggled until the middle of the night in conversation together.
This is where you two mastered the art of bathing the cat.
Remember that drunken bass player who drunkenly played "Down on the Corner" and "We Need the Funk" repeatedly at 1 AM?
This is where he let you keep the thermostat at 65 in December because he knew you were puffy and uncomfortable.
This is where he took beautiful pictures of your pregnant body for just the two of you.

When Greg and I moved in together in June 2007, everything was so harried and uncertain. We knew we were in love, we knew we wanted to be together and give our unborn daughter the best life we could, but everything else was a vast, terrifying blur.
In all the chaos and hormones and learning about each other, I never stopped to realize that we were, at that time, beginning our lives together. I kinda assumed that it would "start" when Chloe arrived or when we got into a house or when we moved away from Myrtle Beach or when we got married. It seems really elementary from where I stand now, but I didn't realize the significance of what moving in with Greg really meant. Maybe it was the habit of being in relationships that worked their way to an inevitable demise or maybe it was just that I was preoccupied, but I just didn't think this far ahead.

This is where he listened to your discomfort-fuelled 3AM breakdown.
Remember how the walls seemed to close in as you amassed baby accoutrement?

It feels like nothing's changed when obviously everything has. I still have this ridiculous crush on this man in that I still giggle when he sends me texts during the workday and I still feel a flutter in my chest when he wraps an arm around me as we drift off to sleep. Somehow, despite our complete irreverence and silliness, we've grown more intimate, with our conversations becoming more self-explorative and expositionary. Somehow we're ecstatic with staying in for evenings of homemade dinners and going to bed at 10:00 even though we're in our early 20's. Somehow we've integrated a new little person into our lives in such a way that we can't remember how we functioned without her.

This is where you first tucked your tiny baby girl into bed and slept independently as a family.
This is where she first smiled when she recognized your faces.
This is where you held each other after the Wal-Mart incident and the in-laws incident.
This is where you first forgave each other.

I know we won't be married until September when I tell some Hawaiian minister that I want to devote myself to Greg forever. But years from now when we sit and reminisce about lives, we're going to remember our first year in our small two-bedroom apartment and all the triumphs and challenges we met in what seemed like such a brief moment.

This is where you started being a family.

I've never felt such joy at the end of something so wonderful.