You stepped on my Shneck

When AJ and I first got engaged, I was elated, excited, nervous… all the things that a new bride-to-be feels.  I couldn’t wait to start the whole planning process, couldn’t wait to start booking things and planning.  I got myself a wedding book, prepared to write all of my vendors down in one place and keep track of who got what. 

Obviously, I was being totally stupid.

Planning for a wedding sucks.  Not only do I need to be happy, but so does AJ, my mom, my dad, his mom, his sister, the wedding party, etc.  So in essence, I am not planning a wedding for me, but one for my entire family and all of our collective friends.  And no one is happy.  No one wants to spend any money, no one wants to make any commitments to anything, and no one can tell me just exactly what I am supposed to be doing to make things better.

I am not a fancy girl.  Truthfully, I would be happy no matter where the reception is held, because I am marrying the most wonderful man that I know.  Shouldn’t that be what the wedding is about?  It seems that these days it is about how much you spent on the flowers, if you have top shelf liquor at the bar, what kind of entress are served, buffet or not buffet… the list goes on and on.  When did a wedding become about how much you spend, instead of how much you love one another? 

All I am asking for is a nice, fun wedding and reception.  I really don’t care where it is, as long as there is good music and plenty to drink.  I have called every possible reception site in my entire state, it seems, but my mom is never satisfied with the price.  I offered to pay for half, she didn’t like that idea either.  I offered to ask my dad for some money, she didn’t want to do that.

I was really looking forward to planning this with my mom.  I am her only daughter, so I thought she would be excited to go through all the planning with me.  I thought wrong.  She is too busy doing her own things to even return a phone call half the time.  And I am not begrudging her her life, I swear!  I know she has her own shit to take care of, and that she is a busy lady.  But just once, I would like to have her undivided attention for more than a two minute stretch and actually sit and talk about this.  Make some plans.  Get excited.  Giggle like two schoolgirls.  I don’t think this is asking too much.  I am trying very hard not to seem selfish, or spoiled.  I don’t want my wedding to be the cause of any bad feelings… I want everyone to remember it with fondness, not dread. 

Maybe we’ll just elope. 

Sometimes being a responsible adult sucks, and I want to pull my hair back in pigtails, put on my Osh Gosh overalls, and pedal my Big Wheel as far away from being a grown-up as I can.  It seems that there are always these choices to be made, and I’m not very good at making them.  I have to decide if I want to be the good me, who pays the bills on time and goes to the grocery store for food, or the bad me, who wants to say fuck you to the bills and eat out for the rest of my life. 

I have a thing for eating out.  It could be that I live in a pretty boring town, and going out is something to do.  It could be that I was a server for years, and I like having someone serve me.  But I am sometimes willing to put everything on hold, just to go out to eat.  And I end up eating too much, to get the total experience, and then I feel fat and irresponsible.  And then I start thinking of all the other, more responsible things I could spend my money on, and then I feel guilty.  Really, I don’t know why I put myself through it, because later I will have knots in my stomach and will be whining to AJ that we shouldn’t have done that. 

I guess this is all a part of being an adult, and yeah, sometimes it really sucks, but I guess there are good things about it, like… uh…. oh, I know!  If I want to stay up all night I can!  If I want to wear pajama’s exclusively all weekend I can!  If I want to eat the entire carton of Ben & Jerry’s I can!  And… I’m out.  That’s all I can think of.  So I guess I better get back to work, to earn the money to pay the bills, to go home and… put on my pajama’s, stay up all night and eat ice cream?  Doesn’t seem like a fair trade off to me. 

Damn it.

• First, the breast.  I went to the doctor a couple days ago, and apparently the lump is just something left over from the surgery, nothing to worry about, I have to watch it for a year and if it doesn’t go away, I’ll have to have it taken out so that there will be no further freakouts about cancer.
• The period.  Well, I never got it, but the doctor said that the birth control that I’m on sometimes causes the lining to be so thin that you don’t bleed.  That’s great news to me!  I also took 2 pregnancy tests in as many weeks, and both were negative, so no baby, no period… sounds good to me.
• I finally got my prescription filled yesterday, and just knowing that my little happy pills are running through my system is making this day a little easier to get through. 
• It is Friday, and I am looking forward to a long weekend of not ever changing out of my pajamas. 

Oh god, I have started this three times and I am so frustrated and angry and just plain bitchy that I kept backspacing.  Okay, for those of you that know how it feels to want to murder everyone around you and then sit in the wreckage and sob  to have to rely on medication to keep you at an even keel, you will know how I am feeling right now.  I have been without my Zoloft for about two weeks, and I am definitely feeling the effects.  I bounce back and forth from being insanely angry to being unreasonably depressed, all in the space of five minutes and all for pretty much no reason.  I called AJ a motherfucker today for leaving the TV on.  My arms are not broken, there is no reason why I can’t pick up the remote myself and switch it off, or *gasp* even go and manually turn it off, no, I just was so mad about it that I exploded with motherfucker.  Then I went in the bathroom and cried.

Why have I been without it for so long?  Well, for the first week it was because we didn’t really have the extra money, and at the time I was feeling all right, so I convinced myself that I didn’t need to get it right away.  The second week I decided that I wanted to switch pharmacies.  I took the empty bottle into the pharmacy and was told that I didn’t have any more refills.  Oh yeah, because I had brought in the wrong bottle… the one I had said I had one refill, but that was the wrong one.  So I had to call my doctor’s office, who told me that it would take 48 hours to get the refill called into the pharmacy.  That was Monday. Since then, I have cried at my desk every day, cried while driving, yelled at AJ for any number of things that were ridiculous, and then cried some more.  I want to simultaneously throw people out the window and also stab someone in the eye.  I called the pharmacy again today (remember, this has been well over 48 hours) and they said that the doctor’s office had never been in touch with them.  So I cried again, and then called the doctor.  They were, of course, at lunch.  I called AJ and cried to him.  I called the doctor’s office back, and the receptionist said, “Oh yeah, that’s in the nurse’s box.  Why don’t you call the pharmacy again tonight and see if it’s in yet?”  I kind of shrieked at her and told her, a little hysterically, that I needed it.  She calmly told me to call the pharmacy later.  I cried.

I hate the fact that I have this disease called depression.  I hate knowing just what the bottom of the black hole looks like.  I hate having to rely on something to regulate my feelings, and I hate people not understanding that I DO have a disease, and it is not something that I can control on my own.  But I have come to terms with it, and just like someone who has asthma and has to use an inhaler, I have to take medication to control it.  However, none of that helps when you are sitting with tears dripping uncontrolably down your cheeks, when the whole world seems against you and you can’t control the dark thoughts that stream across your mind. 

Basically, I need my medicine.  And if there is none waiting for me when I call the pharmacy tonight, heads will roll.  Heads will roll, and tears will fall, and poor AJ… he may need somewhere else to stay tonight. 

Even I am sometimes shocked and amazed at the kind of crap that happens to AJ and I. 

Last night I was already in bed, reading, and AJ was finishing up some sports show on ESPN.  I think it was probably about 10 pm.  I half heard AJ yelling something, but I thought that he was either a.) yelling at something on Sports Center or b.) yelling at one of the cats.  Plus it was a pretty good book so I wasn’t really paying attention.  All of a sudden, AJ bursts into the bedroom and whispers, “There’s someone at the door!  They say they are Jon from the *local* police department.  What should I do?”  I got out of bed and told him to answer the door, for one.  He did, and sure enough, there were two of our cities finest standing at the door.

“Are you AJ *lastname*?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any warrents that you know of?”

At this point, I was shooting murderous looks in AJ’s direction and mouthing, what in the hell did you do?  He kept shaking his head and whispering back, I didn’t do anything, I swear!

“No,” AJ said to the cop, “I don’t know of any warrents.”

“Well, were you ever involved in anything in ThisCounty?”

“Yes,” AJ said, “I was in an accident in ThisCounty about three years ago.”

“ThisCounty is asking for your arrest.  They want us to extradite you to ThisCounty tonight.”

WTF?  I was speechless.  They were arresting him for a trafic ticket?  That happened three years ago?

The policemen were very nice and asked me to get AJ some shoes and a warmer shirt.  I was still reeling, but I went and got them.  I also grabbed the phone, and was frantically dialing my best friend.

The police explained that they were waiting for someone from ThisCounty to call back, and that they would take AJ down to their car until they got further instructions, but he assured me that they would let me know what was going on.  They took my poor fiance, handcuffed him, and put him in the back of the cruiser.

Probably before they were even down the stairs, I had gotten a hold of my best friend and my mom.  My best friend was already on her way and my mom was putting her shoes on, and I held a sobbing, three way conversation with both of them.  My mom kept saying, “What? What?” which really didn’t help the situation, but at least I knew she was there.  And Jen, bless her heart, made the twenty minute drive from her house to mine in about ten minutes flat.  I called ridiculous people, like a girl that AJ works with and also his supervisor.  What, I wonder now in retrospect, could I have possibly thought that these people could accomplish?  But I’m not that good in times of stress, and I think I was just scrolling through my phone, sobbing to anyone who would pick up.

And then AJ walked up the stairs.  Tears still making their way down my cheek, I ran to him and said, “What the fuck??”  He shrugged and said they let him go.  Then I had to call everyone back and say it was a false alarm, then I had to compose myself, and then I had to find out the real story.

Turns out, someone had put the wrong number in some kind of code, and they thought AJ had a warrant for armed robbery.  He does have some fines still to pay for ThisCounty, which is probably why his name came up in the first place, but he is not an armed robber.  That I know of.  Originally, they said his bail would be $10,000, but that was a mistake too.  The police at the house were very sweet, apologizing to both of us for bothering us and for getting us up out of bed.  I was so thrilled that no one was going to jail that they probably could have given me a ticket and I would have hugged them. 

 So there ya go.  I’m marrying a fugitive.  Ha!  Who said nothing exciting ever happens to us… was that me?  I take it back.  I never will wish for something exciting to happen to us again, because I swear I lost ten years off my life in that one instant when they slapped the cuffs on those hands that a few hours earlier had helped my grandma put up a flagpole.  My sweet, sweet AJ was a wanted man.  Except he was the wrong wanted man. 

Funny.

Allow me, if you will, a little rant.  (as if you had a choice… it’s my blog and I can rant if I want to!)  Let me start by saying I love my soon to be MIL and my soon to be SIL.  They are nice people, who would do just about anything for us and who I genuinely have fun with and enjoy the company of.  But but but- there is this one thing that drives me cah-ra-zy.

THEY ARE INCAPABLE OF DOING ANYTHING FOR THEMSELVES!!!  AJ is the only grown male in the family, so whenever there is any kind of problem, be it with the car, the garbage disposal, the stereo… they call AJ.  And this isn’t really that bad, except for the fact that they don’t even try to do anything about the problem.  “My car won’t start.”  Instead of perhaps trying to jump the car or maybe investigating why the car won’t start, they just call AJ.  “The stereo is crackling.”  Instead of simply adjusting the antenna, they call AJ.  Now, I am a female and I have lived by myself.  Sure, sometimes it sucks to have to be the one to stand out in the snow and try and jump your car.  Sure, sometimes you don’t want to kill the gigantic spider in your bathroom… but you do.  You do it, and then if all else fails then maybe you might ask someone for assistance.

In the past month, AJ has: fixed his mother’s car, fixed his sister’s brakes, fixed the stereo, hooked up a computer, advised on garbage disposal issues, jumped his mother’s car, explained for the millionth time that MIL needs to put transmission fluid in her car, and then just did it for her since she refused… I’m sure that I’m leaving out lots, but I get so aggrivated that I tend to block it out.  I just wonder, what would they do if we moved?  What if we decided to pick up and move to another state, across the country… would AJ rack up frequent flier miles because he had to continually fly back across the country and fix the dryer? 

As I said before, MIL and SIL are very willing to help us out if we ever need it, and they really have, on numerous occasions. I am never going to say that they aren’t willing.  But just for the sake of argument, perhaps they could actually try and do SOMETHING for themselves before they get all crazed and call my fiance, who is probably doing something way more important, like watching TV with me.  So there.

Rant over, we now return to your regularly scheduled blog.

Okay, I am having some medical problems.  I know that in my “100 Things” post I explained how I have endometriosis, and also that I recently had a breast reduction.  First of all, I haven’t had a period in about three weeks.  I am on a schedule of taking birth control pills for three months consecutively, then have a period, then take it for three months, etc.  Every other time I have started my period right when I was supposed to, right when I stopped taking it after the three months.  So I did take a pregnancy test last weekend, and it was negative. (last thing I need right now) I guess I am supposed to start the pills again this Sunday and continue on the same path, but I gotta think, isn’t there a build up in there?  Doesn’t some of that residue need to come out? 

Second medical issue- I found a lump in my breast the other day.  Now, the rational part of my brain is telling me that this is no big deal, it is most likely just some scar tissue left over from the surgery, but the IRrational part of me is freaking the fuck out.  To make matters worse, I called my mom to tell her about it, and she asked thirty thousand questions, ending with “Does it hurt?”  “No!” I was glad to say to her, sure that this would end the third degree and that now she could give me some piece of mind, which is why I told her in the first place, but what she said instead was, “Not that that really matters, breast cancer doesn’t hurt.”  Thanks Mom, I feel great now.  I have a doctor’s appointment next week to get it checked out, which also presented a problem because which doctor do I go to?  The gyno? Primary physician? Plastic surgeon?  After talking to the nurse at my pcp, we decided I should start with the plastic surgeon, since it is likely a result of my surgery.  God, if I don’t have to think or talk about boobs for the rest of my life it will be too soon.  The last six months have been dominated by boob talk, thoughts, fears, etc.  First it was should I get the surgery, second it was I’m going to get the surgery and I’m scared, then it was I got the surgery and I hurt, then it was I got the surgery and I have an infection… it is like they are their own entity now.  And I thought that would go away once they weren’t ginormous anymore.  Hmm.

On a totally unrelated note, do you sometimes go through a phase where anything about the opposite sex (or the same, whatever floats your boat) just makes you love them?  Maybe it’s just me.  For the past week, everytime I see a semi attractive male I am instantly turned on, and want to hug and hold that man.  I haven’t shared this with AJ, but I did bug and bug him to watch “8 Mile” this weekend, becoming desperate at the end of the conversation because he wasn’t interested, because I NEEDED TO SEE EMINEM!  I have been listening to male singers, watching males on TV… I don’t know what is wrong with me.  Hormones are all a ragin’, for some reason.  It’s probably that build up I’m afraid of! 

I have started this post about three times, and each time I realize that I just do not have anything interesting to write about today.  Is that a reflection on me?  No, I choose to believe that it is more a reflection on our financial situation, and the fact that we have none, so therefore my life is so uninteresting because we can’t afford to do anything.

See, the whole thing started when we took a vacation.  We used up all of our savings, because we figured, “eh, we’re young, why not?”  Well, I’ll tell you why not.  Because maybe, when you get home after spending all of your money, your car will break down.  And then maybe the mechanic will tell you that it would cost more to fix than the car is worth.  So THEN, just hypothetically speaking of course, you may have to go and buy a totally unprepared for car, wiping out any tiny remnants of any kind of money that you ever had.  I’m just sayin’… it could happen.

So now we have a wonderful new car, and nowhere to go in it.  We’re slowly, slowly dragging ourselves up from the pit of despair, hanging on by our fingernails.  Sometimes, a rock might start rolling towards us as we climb up, and then we’ll be back to the bottom again, but we try, try again. 

I guess I could look at it as a good thing that AJ and I get along, because let me tell you if I had to sit and stare at someone that I didn’t really like that much, that would cause some problems.  But we do, we manage to have fun even if we are just watching something completely idiotic on TV.  Sometimes, we drive around in the new car and pretend that we may have money some day, looking at houses for sale that we will never be able to buy.  This is free.  We like free stuff. 

So what, you might ask, are the big plans for the weekend?  Well, let me tell you, it is going to be exciting.  We are going to clean our house, we are going to clean the car, we are going to do laundry… and on Sunday we are going to a cook-out at my parent’s house, where we will scarf up as much food as we can, because it is free, and well, again, we like free stuff.  You’re jealous, aren’t you?  You wish that you could have as much fun as this. 

We try.

Edit: Looking back on the entry, I find that you may be getting a picture of a destitute girl and her poor fiance, who have to sell themselves on the street just to cook dinner.  This is not the case.  We are not in dire straits… it’s just that I am kind of spoiled sometimes, and I do not like saving money.  So I’m really just being whiny.  Sometimes, I do that.