The big announcement

Ok, so I can finally announce the secret I have been holding on to for the past few months. Although pretty much everyone who reads this blog already knows the news.

Yup...we here in the land-o-cynicism-and-bad-attitudes are havin' a baby. Ok, so maybe it's just me with the cynicism and bad attitude as the husband is very, excited. And who am I kidding...I am very excited too. But just so we are all on the same page here...here are the top three things that I am scared about:

1) I am waaaay to selfish of a person to have a child.
2) I don't want having a child to change who I am (see how selfish that is?)
3) I'm not going to like the baby and it will be too late to return it


Fortunately, I have my hands on a copy of "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year" by Anne Lamott. I am currently on my third reading of it.

I find it incredibly refreshing and hopeful to read about someone else's experience with having a baby...particularly when that person is honest enough to share the reality. My sister says, and I agree with her, that there is unfortunately a group of women (and some men) out there in the world who would like to perpetuate the myth that having a child and raising a child is easy as pie, as fun as fluffy kittens and as sweet as bowls full of candy.

I am thinking I would be better prepared if I were armed with the truth. Not only is Operating Instructions" a very good representation of the truth, but most importantly, I am finding it very inspiring to read about someone just as cynical and of bad-attitude as myself. Because then I know I am not going crazy...or rather, that while I may be going crazy, there are plenty of other crazy people around to welcome me to the crazy-team with open arms.

So there you go...the big news. I am super glad to not have to hold it in anymore because believe you me...I have PLENTY to say about it.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus and have a chance to enjoy some New Year's festivities.

Oh blog, how I have neglected thee.

It isn’t that I don’t have anything to say. On the contrary, I have A LOT to say…I just can’t say it. And for anyone who knows how incredibly hard it is for me to not say things…you know how difficult this has been for me.

Eventually, I won’t have to speak in tongues anymore and can fully express all of my many ridiculous feelings via this platform…but until then, I will just have to leave you with a consolation prize…what is it?

Well, for those of you who already knew me as ‘girl’, this isn’t going to seem very treat-like at all since I am basically just going to regurgitate an oldie-but-goody. But for you new folks, I hope you can take this morsel of writing from my past and forgive me for my blog ignoring indiscretions.



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hog·tie or hog-tie (hôg't1' , h g' -) tr.v. hog·tied: To tie together the feet or legs of.

I hogtied myself to the weight bench at the gym once. My friend, Laura, and I were doing the crazy-psycho-go-to-the-gym-at-5:30-in-the-butt-cold-morning plan and we were doing rather well. Well enough to not warrant any side looks from the regulars...the other crazy psychos who showed up every day at that hour. One of the regulars was a VERY handsome man whose name we did not know and with whom we rarely ever even made eye contact with (even though we shared the same 5 weight benches three days of every week...and even though I thought I was going to marry him someday).

About two months into our crazy-psycho program, I was on the weight bench doing my upper body exercises. The weight bench has two sections to it, and they both adjust for angle. At the end of the smaller section of the weight bench is a lever to help you move it, like a wheelbarrow. I was lying on the bench and had finished the exercise I was sleeping through and started to get up so I could grab a different set of weights. Laura was to my right on the next bench over, fighting her way through her set of reps on her highest weight. Also to my right was a pile of HUGE 80lb dumbbells that are only in the gym so that guys can brag about that one time they picked up the 80lb weight and moved it. Of course, if they can all pick up the weight, what would be so wrong about them putting it back?!! But I digress.

As I stood up, my left sweatpant leg got wrapped around the lever at the front of the bench. I, being unaware of this issue, proceeded to continue to step forward with my left leg. I had just started complete, dedicated momentum to my right, when the sweatpant leg tightened causing my left leg to trap my right ankle and I went flailing to the ground between the two benches and landed on top of the stack of 80lb dumbbells.

Owie.

Instead of rushing to my aid, Laura (who, to her credit was very concerned about not dropping her dumbbells on top of me) focused on asking me “Are you ok?, Are you ok?” as she thoughtfully tried to confirm that I had not fallen because I had fainted. I, however, was completely consumed with trying to release myself from the bench, and did not hear her. Try as I might, I could not get my legs untangled and every move I made just ended up cinching me even tighter to the lever. As I lay writhing on the ground, laughing, snorting, flailing, crying, etc., cute gym guy came over to investigate. He took one look at my sweatpants wrapped around the bench, glanced at me and tossed out a lackadaisical, “Ya’ need help with that?” before gently flicking my sweatpants off the lever (as though it was the easiest thing in the world), thereby releasing me from my bondage while he walked away.

Ok then…so much for that marriage.

So much for that theory...

So, I decided to stop resisting my fate and jump into the prepubescently technological trend that is Twitter.

Turns out my dad's there. So much for trendy.

And now he's found this blog.

Which greatly detracts from my ability to use this blog as a platform for writing my first novel: "There's No Jew in Utah: Confessions of a Meshugeneh's Daughter"

Oh well...

Welcome dad!

History

Today, I participated in history. In good history. Not history of war. Not history of violence. Not history of racism. Not history of hate.

Rather, history of change. History of acceptance. History of love. History of responsibility.

History of voting.

(source)

It was very emotional for me as I found myself incredibly inspired by the people surrounding me as we all made history together.

Yes, there were problems. There was a man handing out flyers on Question 3 to the people in line.

There were angry drivers causing gridlocked traffic on our little streets surrounding the elementary school.

But for the most part, it was a jovial, energetic vibe and I am so incredibly proud to have been a part of it.

What was your vote like today?

huh...

So....the Great Pumpkin DID show up to the Halloween party...and it wasn't my husband.


Discuss.

Happy Halloween!!

Tonight I will be attending an annual Halloween party at a friend's house. Usually they dress up as some "well known" couple from any variety of sci-fi adventure series. This year, they have a two month old little boy, so I am very excited to see what they will have come up with. I will be even more excited if I know who it is they are referring to (I don't really get around the sci-fi networks that much).

My husband hates dressing up in costume and conveniently (for him) he has a meeting out of state that he has left for.

But I decided that we could attend the party as a couple anyway. I will be going as Linus and my husband will be portraying the Great Pumpkin.



Which I think works out great, because all night long I will be able to refer to the fact that he will show up before the night is over, and then when he doesn't show up at all it will be even more appropriate.

:)

What are you going to be for Halloween?

We interrupt this blog...

...to dedicate my hair today to my favorite muppet, Don Music.



May your music always inspire children and may your hair always lack styling gel.

Amen.

Coasting Anon

Well, there's a new girl around these parts and she is no longer 'MZpuzzled', rather she is 'Coasting Anon'.

I like it.

It represents my love for all things Coastal as well as my current take on how I am traveling through life.

It expresses my anonymous blogging stance while still associating itself with the concept of 'Coasting Along" by sheer force of rhyming.

And, most importantly, if you Google search it only two results show up so far.

Why that last one, you ask?

Well, on my last blog, my moniker was 'Girl'. Just 'Girl'. Do you have any idea how hard it is to pick your blog or any mentions of your blog out of a line-up on Google when the search term is 'Girl'? Yeah. So Coasting Anon it is.

I think it has a rather nice ring to it. What do you think?

Whoops…you mean I’m supposed to update this thing?

Sorry about that. I have been out of practice. I don’t have much to report from the field here other than it is a craptastic day here in Boston complete with wind, rain and defeated umbrellas strewn along the sidewalks.

Oh...here's some news: I finally talked to my husband about this blog.

You see, he thinks anything to do with the internet is evil. Seriously. Evil.

Mostly because the experience he has with blogs comes from me…and I used to sometimes say things on my blog that would inevitably royally piss off my friend, and roommate at the time, and then I would turn to him for comfort and his reaction would be, ‘than don’t put it out there’.

Also, he was sitting there at the table with me when I was fired from my job, so he knows how deeply involvement with a blog can hurt.

Lastly, the only other information he ever hears about people on the internet are the horror stories we get every few months about some kid meeting up with some perv from MySpace or Facebook and getting killed or maimed or drawn into a Liger-worshiping troupe of ne’re-do-gooders who think the end of the world will be signified by a female governor from Alaska in the White House...oh wait...I believe that.

Annnnnnyyyyway....I talked to him about starting another blog and told him that I was doing it because I have a voice that I think people want to hear. Not millions of people per-say, but rather a handful. And as long as there is a handful of people who are amused and, dare-I-say, entertained by my writing, I felt I should allow myself to provide to those people via my blog on the big-ole-scary internets.

I explained that I was going to write as anonymously as possible but that I was going to focus on stories about me, rather than stories about other people; which meant that theoretically, the only person who would potentially be getting 'exposed' by my writing would be me. I also reminded him that the stories I have to tell aren’t all nice and pretty and perfect; that there are things about me in the stories I want to tell that some people may find offensive or shocking, but that it was my choice to ‘put it out there’ and I was doing so because I felt like I had something to say.

And he said ‘ok’.

Not that I was looking for his approval, but at least now I can rest assured that I am not hiding anything from him which really opens up the opportunity to blog freely and express myself.

Ok, so now that THAT's out of the way...any ideas on where to start?

The Wordle has spoken

Thanks to my lovely friend, Ellie, over at The Lucky Nest, I found a lovely site, Wordle, which has a wonderful feature for creating word clouds.

I entered in this here blog, and lo and behold this is what came out (click on the wordle to enlarge):

So, anonymous I shall be.

Let's not mention how with this type of rationalization I should apparently be getting drunk to the point of feeling up the toilet, writing more letters by hand and letting my husband know he's gonna get lucky tonight.

This is why I never get anything done

A while back my husband and I noticed that the toilet in our 1/2 bath downstairs would suddenly start running all on its own and it was determined that the rubber seal at the bottom of the upper tank was leaking water into the bowl and making the toilet feel as though it had to fill the upper tank to keep up.

It seemed like a simple fix...turn off the water, take out the old rubber thingy, install the new rubber thingy and voila!

Sadly, that wasn't the case. Which is how I ended up with my downstairs bathroom looking like this for a couple of days:


As you can see from the picture above, I had to take the entire back of the toilet off in order to even access the big plastic nut that attaches everything to the inside from the outside.

You can also see the lovely instruction sheet from the kit purchased to take care of this task:

Oh yeah, and waaaaay down there in direction #6 is the small disclaimer that part you have supposedly bought the kit to fix, doesn't actually come in the kit. It is sold separately.

AAARREGHHH!!!!!!!

I do enjoy how they just slide that information into parethesis like a true after thought. It reminds me of why I never cook from a Martha Stewart cookbook. Because more-often-than-not, halfway through the recipe, you get to a step that tells you to go out to the garden to the tree you planted last spring and drain the sap for 10 hours with a tool that you can only get from Williams-Sonoma on Tuesdays in years ending with odd numbers.

In any case, I do feel rather satified that I eventually pulled this off and did, in-fact, fix the toilet!

To blog anonymously or not to blog anonymously

As a follow up to my very first post (at this blog), I am finding that I am having a very difficult time deciding whether I should blog anonymously or not.

On the one hand, by blogging anonymously, I have a little more freedom to discuss things going on in my life.

On the other hand, I already did the blogging anonymously thing and it turned right around and bit a huge chunk out of my ass.

On the one hand, I feel that when writing, you should write what you know and you shouldn't edit yourself to only include the happy, not-going-to-offend-anyone bits.

On the other hand, some people in my very own family will only accept that truth if you are 'in-fact' a writer...something that apparently can ONLY be defined by having a degree in literature, a previous history of the desire to write (which, incidentally, should NOT include any failed English classes no matter how much better you would have been in school had someone only recognised and treated the signs of ADHD in a way other than closing you up in a box in front of your entire fourth grade class so that you didn't daydream away from your assignment), published the great American novel to great acclaim and a weekly showing on the NY Times best seller list.

If I blog anonymously and say what I want to say and then someday get found, I could end up hurting others, including myself, all over again.

If I don't blog anonymously, I might feel censored and the whole point of starting this all up again was to be able to write.

I am at an impasse. I don't know what to do.

What would you do?

PS - while you are mulling over the answer to that question, can you also give up a suggestion for what I should be calling myself over here until I DO make a decision? Because, well, MZPuzzled is...uh... ...lame. Thanks.

Jersey Shore

I spent the weekend at the Jersey Shore with some family on my husband's side. Below are some pics of the trip. Please excuse the blatant use of post-processing techniques. I truly loved the original pictures that I took...but I took them with the sole intent of 'going to town' on 'em with Photoshop, just so I can get some more exposure (pun not intended).

Such a cute little fuzzy-wuzzy bear

Do you think she knows those ridiculous boots paired with her unfortunate stature makes me just want to pick her up and sqeeeeeeze her?

I'm such a freakin' cliché

In this play, the part of UPS man will be played by the nice, unassuming delivery man who shows up at our office every day.

The part of me, will be played by...uh...me.

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Doorbell rings.
I look up to see UPS man at the door with envelope barely the size of the scanner to check it in.

Me: (opening door) Wow, what a small package you have!
UPS man: (silence)
UPS man: (silence)
Me: (signing scanner)
UPS man: Last name?
Me: (stating last name)
UPS man: (silence, turns on heel and leaves)
---

yeah.

Forget writing, let's just giggle a bit today

So I missed the actual interview between Katie Couric and Sarah Palin and instead watched the Saturday Night Live spoof of it first and I thought it was a riot. Then someone sent me a link to this short segment from the actual interview...and I laughed even harder. Seriously, I think Tina Fey actually makes Sarah Palin look smarter!!



What do you think?

And for those of you who didn't see the SNL skit:

To blog or not to blog

Exactly a year ago yesterday, I sat at our dining room table with my husband waiting for a phone call. We had just returned from our honeymoon in Italy; a wonderful 12 day experience that capped off the party of our lives preceded by months of careful planning.

A few days prior to the wedding, I had been called into a conference room at work and I remember sauntering down the hallway thinking how sweet it was that the people I worked with were throwing me a shower, or some other wedding related party.

Sadly, that wasn't the case. Instead, with my boss on the conference phone and the HR girl sitting across from me at the big oak table, I was given an 10 minute inquisition over my personal blog. A blog that I had kept completely anonymous for three years. A blog where I had discovered how much I loved to write. I was asked to pack my things for the day and leave and they would do their best to figure out what they were going to do with me.

The wedding came and went and it was amazing. No one could have taken that away from us. And we left and headed to Italy to eat fresh pasta dishes under privately-owned lemon groves, shuffle through the dust of Rome and get ourselves lost in the maze of Venice. On the last day of our honeymoon, we received notice that I was to stay at home on Monday and wait for a phone call at 8:30am from my boss.

So there I was, dressed up for luck in one of the sweaters that we had given to our bridal attendants as gifts, sitting at the dining room table with my new husband, waiting for the phone to ring.

It's been year since that day when I softly pressed the red button on the cordless phone, folded my arms on the table, lay my head down on them and sobbed. Sobbed for the job that I had loved; sobbed for the husband I thought I was disappointing; sobbed for the loss of newlywed innocence. A year of anger, hurt, tears, misunderstandings, disagreements, sadness. But also a year of new beginnings, challenges, loves, desires, and happiness.

I've been down this road before and it didn't end well. But here I am, ready to try again. Hoping to find what I was looking for in the first place: my voice.

I am a writer. I write what I know. I am funny. I am real. I am not always good. I am sometimes great.

I am a writer.
This is my blog.