Baby flu

Hello blog readers,

Sorry about the delay between posts. I decided sometime last week that I hated the soap dispenser in our bathroom, but one doesn't simply replace a bathroom accessory. So $300, some paint, plaster and furniture later we have a redecorated bathroom. Time did not allow for writing during this, so I apologize. At some point I may decide that the coat hooks in the kitchen are sub-par and you'll have to deal with a gap in writing at that time as well. I'm sure we'll all make it through.

You'll also notice I've gone through a slight blog redesign. I'm on the fence about how I want it to look because I find a lot of blinged out sites are just distracting. So for now we're keeping it simple.

On to the blog.

Two and a half years ago I attended the wedding of a friend in Boston. Being the prompt and thoughtful gift giver I am, last week I threw a bunch of money at Crate and Barrel and sent her a wedding gift in the form of an e-gift card because nothing says personal touch like an email telling you your friend is giving you money for a fancy colander.

After not hearing from her for a day, I figured she was reciprocating by waiting another two and a half years to thank me, which seemed fair. However she soon called and that's when the bomb was dropped - she's pregnant.

This brings the grand total of people in my life who have or will have a baby within a 12 month period this year to FIVE.

FIVE.

My current facebook newsfeed.

Now I was cool when everyone my age was getting married because cake. But when did we start creating life? I still can't get our cats to stop eating my hair and my friends are making whole people. And not only are they birthing and raising kids, but they're actually good at it.

In 6th grade home economics class there was a week when we all had to carry around sacks of flour and pretend they were our babies. Being a child who took way too long to stop playing with dolls, I was pretty psyched about this. I went home and went to town making my flour baby look awesome. She had yellow yarn done up in pigtails for hair. Glued on buttons for eyes and I even managed to fit her in some old babydoll PJs. She was perfect.

That is right up until I knocked her off a table and sent her sailing to the ground where she burst into a cloud of baby dust on the classroom floor.

I didn't bother to make a new one for fear that I would waste another 5 lbs of potential pastries, so I resigned myself to the fact that perhaps babies were not in my future.

Obviously this was a silly declaration to make at 12 years old and flour babies aren't really a great way to evaluate your parenting skills or your desire to be one. Based on my experience, the true litmus test for one's desire to have children should be spending a Saturday afternoon at Costco.

It's my belief that some parents don't feed their kids all week and wait till Saturday sample day at Costco for them to get their fill because the gusto with which some of those children hurl themselves at square inch pieces of frozen pizza could only be rivaled with Kirstie Alley's desire to say "Suck it Jenny!" and send her body flying through a window of the Hostess Factory Headquarters. (It's really only a matter of time before she reaches blimp status again and I'm waiting with breath that is baited for the magazine cover featuring her that reads, "Cheers!" as she's toasting Ronald McDonald with a Big Mac.) But I digress...

Combine Costco rugrats diving for fresh-from-the-oven frozen crudites with bus-sized carts filled with 3 or 4 of them grabbing at anything they can get their grubby hands on and the screaming. Oh the screaming.

I know I know. What the hell do you expect when Costco places a picture of ice cream the size of Jessica Simpson's pregnant ass on the wall directly at the front of the store? Of course kids are going to wail until you shut their faces with frozen sugar. I don't blame them. However I do think Costco would do well to hand you ear plugs promptly after checking your membership card upon entrance.

I should probably clarify at this time that I don't dislike children. They're adorable. Really, I mean it.

Well some of them are little shits. But for the most part, they're adorable and if you're one of my friends reading this who has just had a baby or is about to have a baby, yes I think your kid is great. However forcing me to visit Babies R Us nine million times in the past year has just been cruel. Thanks for that. I hope you're having the time of your life with your bobby pillows. Do you have any idea how fucking hard it is to wrap one of those damn things?

Oh but I've done it and I've attended the showers where you play baby gift bingo and whatnot. Note to future mothers: alcohol at your baby shower is pretty much mandatory. This is not a suggestion. It's the only way unmarried, non-mothers are going to get through it. In my experience my answers to the endless "When are you going to get married and have kids?" questions become much more creative with each glass of wine.

An angel came to me in a dream and gave me the exact opposite news Mary got.

The bees are going to get us all anyway.
 
I've seen Alien one too many times. 

My kids could turn out dumb or Republican. Then what?

Our cats would probably kill anything I brought home. 

Because Lindsay Lohan. 

The true answer to those questions is I have absolutely no idea and don't think about it all that much, but this answer seems to make people uncomfortable. I understand that Disney movies have conditioned us to go about life a certain way - find your prince, get married, pump out human livestock. However unlike Ariel I'm not cool with having no voice so some dolt can fall in love with my eyes. And seriously, Sleeping Beauty? She got lip raped by a stranger while she slept and decides that it's true love. Bitch be desperate.

My life is far from normal and looks nothing like a Disney movie. Hell, it probably never will. I'm 30 years old living in sin with my boyfriend and two cats, but every day is more fun than a bowl of boobs.

I promise to keep liking your facebook baby pictures though as long as I can keep posting mundane pictures of my cats. It's only fair.



Keeping with the kid theme, here's my favorite thing from the internet today.

"This is the last straw!"

Dirty 30

Happy Thursday, Surfers of the Interwebs!

So it looks like this blog isn't really going to have a consistent schedule. I'd love to tell you that I'm posting on such and such day every week, but I'm very busy and important (Read: keeping up with reality TV and making sure I don't get kicked out of my non-existent book club are full time jobs) so posts will come when they do and I'll throw notices up on Facebook and Twitter whenever I've been productive. If you wanna follow me on Twitter, I'm Lalalinzy24 - dumbass name I know, but I have over 100 followers and only like 60 of those are wannabe internet porn stars, so I can't start over now.

On to the blog.

I recently turned 30 and I became acutely aware of the fact that I'm officially an adult by age standards. Yes, I know they say you're an adult at 18, my standards are better than theirs.

When I was in 3rd grade, I thought 6th graders were about as mature as you could get. They sat all smug in the very back of the bus and swung their backpacks over only ONE shoulder. If that wasn't the epitome of maturity I didn't know what was. However, as I got older I came to the conclusion that the day you graduated college was definitely it - the moment you became an adult.

(I just actually laughed out loud, but if you ever catch me writing "LOL" on here, feel free to bitch slap me with a slinky.)

When I got out of college I immediately started freelancing, but that's not exactly steady income for the most part, so I also cocktailed at Second City Chicago. If you've ever served before, you know that waiters and waitresses are some of the biggest, most irresponsible partiers on the planet. So no, I did not immediately become a responsible adult at this time. I did, however, get to meet a number of famous actors and actresses including Dennis Quaid, who when greeted with the standard "Hello Sir, how are you this evening?" promptly responded with "WATER." It was that night I learned water was classified as a state of being. Thanks, Denny.

Freelancing didn't last forever and I eventually landed myself a job in the big bad world of Advertising. Adult job, adult life, right?

Wrong.

If I thought servers were partiers, I hadn't seen anything yet. Advertising execs and creatives work hard and play like 14yr olds who just discovered the key to their parents' liquor cabinet and stash of Playboy magazines. Three martini lunches, 2pm beer carts, playing flip cup with an executive worth well over $500K...this was not the time to become the adult I had envisioned.

These setbacks certainly weren't due to a lack of guidance as I was growing up. My parents taught me all the important lessons to get me where I needed to be - Don't do drugs. Pick a college major that will make it easy to find a job. Don't rack up credit card debt. I went on to personally test the credibility of all these hypothesis and can safely say that, yes, they check out.

That last one was easy for them to say since they grew up during a time when they actually had to get up and go somewhere if they wanted to buy stuff. I, however, have woken up at 3am with the TV still on and been faced with the ultimate question of "Why haven't my jeans felt like PJs this entire time?" and decided it's absolutely absurd that I've been forced to endure this awful material for so long and it would be a travesty to continue on a path of such leg torture.

So yeah, I turned 30 last October and it wasn't the number at first that told me I was an adult. There are subtle things like not being able to instantly drop 10lbs by cutting down my gum intake by one stick anymore. Enrolling in a retirement fund hit me pretty hard too. The HR dude predicted that I would retire in the year 2045. That's like some crazy space year. I imagine my savings will be just enough to get me into a cushy retirement home that floats somewhere in the atmosphere while all the residents talk about the good ole' days when kids spoke to each other on AOL instant messenger and not through this new-fangled telepathy crap.

Anyway, what's done is done. I've survived and made it to 30. I'm an adult. I actually pay when tax time comes around instead of receiving a fat government check and heading to Best Buy for Saved By the Bell DVDs (I'm So Soo SCARED!)

...how long do you think it took them to get approval on that very special episode? You think Elizabeth Berkley was worried a caffeine pill addiction would tarnish her image? I imagine she looked in the mirror after that aired and said to herself, "Fuck it. No going back now. Where'd I put that Striptease script?"

Alright time to wrap this up. I'm definitely not where I thought I'd be at 30. As a wee bit, I declared that when I grew up I wanted to be a "Home Dancer." This logic was solid - I wanted to dance, but didn't want to leave home, so I invented the career. Had that actually panned out and I didn't realize that I had the coordination of a dyslexic octopus, I'd probably be tap dancing in my parents' living room right now. I think we can all agree this worked out for the best.

No, I'm definitely not where I thought I'd be, but I don't think that's a bad thing and I take steps everyday to better myself. Just yesterday I let a dude cut me off in traffic and didn't honk or flip him off. Watch out Mother T!

I really don't know how to end this post.

Bye!


Here's my favorite thing from the internet today. Just MJ drinking vodka like a boss with two Little People.

Ballin'