Before you start telling me that I have no sense of humor or that I’m obviously an idiot let me explain that I really loved his earlier books. I can’t make it through a Christmas without reading Holidays on Ice and yet his latest books have left me feeling meh. I just don’t see the funny in them. Can anyone explain to me what I’m missing?

In addition to lots of reading, I’ve also been watching lots of tv without the use of tivo. I know, what the hell kind of third world country am I living in? Since I’m lacking the tivo I can’t pause and then fast forward through commercials and it seems I’ve forgotten how annoying commercials can be. First they are so loud. If the show’s volume is here, the commercial’s volume is HERE!! And god forbid it’s a commercial featuring Billy Mays because then the speakers blow out and my ears bleed. But I doubt that’ll be a problem anyone more. (In tribute to Mr. Mays I’m pouring a little OxyCean into every load of laundry I do this week. Which I mostly do anyway, but now it’s a touching tribute and not just an effort to eradicate stains.)

Besides the volume issues, I’m slowly being driven crazy by commercials for various technical colleges where the recent graduate proclaims “If I can do it, you can do it!” This pisses me off to no end because it does not work as a sales pitch. That’s what you say when you are totally pathetic at something yet can still do it, so the speaker is admitting that she’s a moron. Right? “I’m a burn out loser/total fucking idiot/have the attention span of a gnat but if I can do it, you can do it!” This does not entice me to sign up for dental assistant classes. The only thing that makes me more angry is when it’s a voice over saying “If she can do it, you can do it!” Really Mr. Voice Over, you think the person is an idiot? Do they know what you think of them or do they only find out once they’ve gathered their family around to see their commercial debut? How embarrassing for them. I hope you end up going to their dental clinic and they get to scrape your teeth and gums with the pointy hook until you bleed.

Unrelated, I’m feeling incredibly huge today. And I think I’m getting fat in the neck. How does a neck get fat? How does one lose weight from their neck? I miss working out and running. whhhiiiinnnneeee

Even when I was at my best with posting here, I failed miserably at updating other social networking sites. It’s actually embarrassing how little I use my facebook account. The other day I uploaded a picture there and discovered that some of my contacts didn’t even know I was pregnant. The point of facebook is for people to easily keep up to date with their friends’ lives, yet I apparently don’t understand that concept. But wait, isn’t that why I have a blog?

I guess what I’m wondering is, what are the rules for blog and facebook crossover? Is it annoying to post to your blog and then link to that post in your facebook status? Is there an app that does it for you? Does it come off as a desperate plea for attention? Or should I assume that the people that are my facebook friends know about my blog and if they wanted to read it, they would? I mean, the more people are all “whoa, I didn’t know you’re pregnant!” over there, the more I feel like an ass of a friend. But I fail at updating facebook. Really, I tried, but I’m no good at it.

So, internet, what are the rules for this sort of thing? Do it and possibly come off as an attention whore? Or stick to posting updated statuses to facebook every 6 months or so? Or is it totally acceptable and I’m just over thinking it like I do about most things?

It was truly the ideal shower for me because I get nervous and make bad jokes when I’m the center of attention. And really does anyone, mother-to-be included, enjoy sitting and opening all the gifts in front of the guests? Is it just me or is that a weird custom? Also baby games make my skin crawl. “Hey, I’m feeling really fat and cow like! Let’s all guess how big I am! That totally won’t kill the last bits of self esteem that I have!” Wow, am I ever a bitter person.

Lots of our friends at the BBQ asked if I felt ready for the baby and I had to admit that sometimes I do feel ready but those times tend to get beaten into submission by the times when I realize that oh holy hell, a baby will be living with me soon. A baby that needs to be fed, changed, and bathed. Since I have the best friends ever, they were quick to tell me that jparks and I will be great parents, which makes my hormone filled brain go fuzzy and possibly makes tears fill my eyes. It’s one thing to hear jparks repeatedly tell me that we’ll be good parents, but it’s another to have people that aren’t legally required to tell me that say it.

One friend likes to remind me that 16 year olds in high school bathrooms are giving birth and raising babies and if they can do it, then I’ll be fine. Since I like to take things as far as I can, I’ve started tivo’ing MTV’s new show “16 and Pregnant” because it eases some of my fears. My other favorite show is “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” which causes me to hate myself for not being able to remove it from my tivo’s to do list. Both of these shows make me feel like I’m bound to be a good mother because A) I’m not 16 and fighting with my baby daddy about if we should spend money on formula or getting the kid’s name tattooed across our chests and B) because I’m well aware that I have a baby inside of me, am getting prenatal care, and won’t go to the bathroom one day only to look down and find a baby in the toilet.

And speaking of being a good mother, I may not know how to bath or swaddle the kid when he gets here, but he will have the freaking cutest socks ever. Also jparks is now the proud (extremely proud) owner of a diaper dude bag so really we’re 100% set for parenthood.

This realization led to me scouring Baby Bargains for product reviews and then heading over to my registries to add and delete items obsessively. After searching for my Babies R Us registry I noticed this:

Whoa, jparks gets around! He’s a man whore with babies all over the country!

And then on Amazon he has a few more baby mommas:

I feel so cheap and used. And a bit scared because here I thought I was just unleashing one mini-jparks onto the world, but I was so wrong. There will be many and, my god, the world is not ready for that.

Jparks’ knee was really swollen and walking on uneven ground was not really an option, so we never made it to the beach, but that didn’t stop us from lounging about while doing nothing. Our hotel room had two patios and one was large enough for two lounge chairs and a table, so we spent one afternoon on it, soaking up the sun. Or in my case, soaking up the shade while wearing SPF 50 and still getting sunburned. The only thing missing was a bottle of champagne.

We also carved out time to see a movie (The Hangover, which was pretty funny although totally ridiculous) and jparks was treated to a pedicure. When I picked him up from the ride he leaned in and whispered to me “I’m really looking forward to the pedicure” so I knew that even though I hadn’t made us pedicure appointments, I would have to find a place to fit us in. And what do you know, I found a place:

The woman giving jparks his pedicure offered to give him a clear coat of polish but he was not on board for that. I didn’t understand why not, I mean if you’re getting a pedicure you might as well go all out. And it’s clear polish, not red like I got.

All in all the four days away was wonderful and I am now hopelessly in love with that area. I expected extremely hot weather but was treated to temps lower than here in the perpetually cool Bay Area. Also the whole area was green and lush and I kept telling jparks that I want to live in Southern Cal where they take water for granted and have plenty of plants and trees. Not that we don’t have green around here, but it’s not nearly as wide spread. Damn us and our water conserving ways.

I can’t wait to go back and hopefully next time jparks won’t be a gimp so we can visit the beach, although I was told the water is too cold to go into without a wetsuit. Also, I can’t wait to go back so we can go to Harbor House Cafe and have another monster banana split.

I did finally cave and brought the toilet paper inside but only because I hit a point of no return where it was either bring it in or start using the baby wipes that a friend gave me. And since I’m fairly certain baby wipes aren’t flushable and that’s not a road I wanted to go down yet, toilet paper it had to be.

Besides my toilet paper laziness I have delayed packing for my trip down to Southern California until tonight and I leave in the morning. Also, I’m delaying it even more by typing this pointless post. On top of that I still have to take the trash out, fill out my unemployment form, and figure out directions to the VA Center in L.A. where jparks’ AIDS Lifecycle ride ends. Maybe I should put some extra food out for the cats too. I’m also pretending that I didn’t have a running list of errands and tasks to complete around the house this week because I only did one of them. Maybe. I can’t really remember. Wait, yes, nap was on the list and I did that.

My crowning laziness achievement was when I went to the dry cleaners today to pick up some pants I had there. Turns out the pants were so far past their pick up date that the lady behind the counter said they don’t usually allow people to pick up items that at this point, but because I’m pregnant and obviously have a lot on my mind, she would let me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I knew they needed to be picked up and even though I live within walking distance I just couldn’t be bothered. Or that when I was at the grocery store numerous times in the past month the extra five steps to the cleaners would have killed me. I’m just too damn lazy for those five steps. I did however tell her that it was jparks fault, that he was the one that forgot the pants, not me. This of course, is totally not true in any way and I doubt he even knew the pants were there. When I told her that she shook her head, laughed, and said “That’s husbands for you, always forgetting to run errands!” Ha, yes, husbands, darn them for being so lazy!

Now you’ll have to excuse me as I end this abruptly because coming up with a coherent conclusion is obviously way too much work.

It started on Monday when I went to Whole Foods. I parked, was getting out of the car when an older man, maybe around 70, walked in front of my parked car and started yelling at me that I had almost run him over. I was a bit confused and asked if he meant while I was driving through the parking lot. He responded with a very yell-y “No, just now when I was walking in front of your car!” So yeah, I almost ran over a 70 year old with my parked car, while the keys were in my hand, the driver door was open, and I was halfway out the door. It’s a talent I have. Not knowing what else to do, I apologized and headed towards the store. The whole walk across the parking lot he was yelling at me while people looked at us bewildered. I’m surprised I didn’t come back to a car that had been keyed or at least covered in organic, free range eggs.

No, I’m not that lucky because what I came back to was way worse. As I exited the store I saw two people dry humping on the trunk of my car. My first thought was “damn teenagers!” but as I got closer I realized that this wasn’t horny teenagers, this was horny 40 something year olds. Dry humping! On my car! I mean, come on people at least do it on your own cars, which were plenty of big enough to dry hump on or in. (Mercedes wagon, BMW 7 series. Plenty of humping room in those.) As I approached, still not quite knowing what to say, the couple noticed me and scurried back to their own cars which were parked on either side of mine. They never went in the store (neither car was there when I parked) and this leads me to believe that they were having an affair and decided to meet at their local Whole Foods for a little dry humping. Because nothing is sexier than a Whole Foods parking lot.

The final bit of crazy I’ve encountered this week was tonight when I went swimming at our neighborhood pool. Normally I try and go early in the morning or around 6:30 in the evening so there aren’t many people there to be scared by my stomach. Tonight I got there and a woman was swimming laps, which is pretty common. She was swimming freestyle the whole time and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary about her. Another couple showed up after 30 minutes and were sitting on the deck when lapper climbed out of the pool. Revealing that she was topless. And at least 60 years old. With droopy boobs. I nearly drowned because the shock of it was too much. The other couple was obviously shocked too, but thank god they still possessed their ability to speak, unlike me. As Droopy Boobs stood on the side of the pool drying off, the guy politely told her that this was a pool that is open to the whole neighborhood, that lots of kids come here to swim, and that it might be considerate for her to swim with some sort of top from now on. She thanked him for the advice and explained that she had just moved here and that she’s used to topless swimming. Of course, she was topless while she explained all of this which was totally not awkward.

Dear crazy people of the Bay Area, I’m tired. And while I appreciate you guys going all out to keep me entertained while jparks is gone, do you think we could tone it down for the rest of the week? I don’t have the energy to deal with anymore dry humping or dropping boobs. So let’s reign it in and take our meds. Or at the very least, give me a few days on sanity and resume the crazy on Friday. Deal?

I will admit that it’s nice to finally know that people aren’t looking and wondering if I’ve ever heard of the 30 Day Shred but at the same time it is very unsettling to have random people approach me to talk when I’m shopping at Target. Thankfully no one has gone for the stomach touch yet because seriously, friends only! And even letting friends do that took awhile for me to become comfortable with.

I think part of the reason that these questions and comments have caught me so off guard is because I am having a hard time seeing how big I’m getting. I mean, I know I’m big and I routinely walk around the house mooing at jparks, but knowing just how much I’ve grown week to week is a challenge. Thank god I don’t wear pants with stretchy waistbands when I’m not pregnant because I would probably weigh 400 pounds and not even realize it.

Anyway, I’m tired since I skipped my nap today (woe is me) so let’s just give the people want they want: evidence of my fatness

It’s safe to say that when he first told me that I might have laughed because really? Have you guys met my princess of a husband? He was going to ride from SF to LA? No. No fucking way. I tried to explain that maybe this wasn’t the best idea because if he thought running was boring, what was he going to do to entertain himself on really long bike rides where it’s illegal to wear headphones? In fact, what was he going to do on really long bike rides when he actually had to you know, ride the bike? He refused to listen to me, mostly because he had already paid the registration fee, and started training.

That was back in November and since then he has really (surprisingly) committed a lot of time to training. Of course, since he’s jparks there have been times when he wanted to quit, but did you know cycling is way more expensive of a sport than running? And nothing can motivate him like me getting upset over the cost of his bike, jerseys, or other random crap required for rides. For once my nagging skills were useful.

Since this ride is in support of the AIDS foundations in San Francisco and Los Angeles, jparks had to raise at least $3000. I’m not going to lie, I thought I would be the one raising the money for him and was a bit annoyed. But Whitney came to our rescue and designed some posters for jparks to hang around his office that helped him come up with the money in record time. I think it was because we hit on the perfect sales pitch: “Want to get rid of jparks for a week? Donate here!”

After months of training, fund raising, nagging from me, sores knees, sunburned stripes on his bald head, and countless gu packs he leaves on Sunday morning for a 545 mile trek down to Los Angeles. For seven days jparks will ride most of the length of California, sleeping at night in a tent (did I mention the camping? oh yes, camping. hahahaha) and eating whatever is served in the food lines. Honestly I can’t imagine jparks doing any of those things but I know he will because he’s too stubborn to quit at this point. And besides all his coworkers donated so they could be jparks free for a week and I’m surely not going to let him sit at home and pester me all day so they can have their week of quiet.

Like I mentioned, he has reached the minimum amount of money needed to go on the ride, but if you want to show your support for jparks or the AIDS foundations, donations can be made here: To Fight HIV.

I know how hard and time consuming training for something can be and I’m incredibly surprised that my ADD husband was able to stick with this for the past seven months. I gave him a lot of crap throughout his training because that’s who I am, but honestly I’m really proud of him. Even if now he has little chicken legs and weighs less than me.

Up until yesterday I was pretty okay with the idea of having one car. The lease was ending on my car in May and in February, when we made the decision to only have one car, that was hella far away. Tonight my car goes back to the dealership and we attempt to walk away without Volvo pushing another car on us. I think it’s safe to say that I would be the easy sell on a new car and jparks might actually end up being the sensible one in this situation. My plan is to bring a book and stick my nose in it, only looking up to explain why my rims are scraped to the point of unrecognizable (I love nothing more than running them into curbs) and to sign the paperwork.

While I would like to claim we are dropping one car to be more environmentally friendly, the truth is that since getting laid off we’ve been looking for small ways to spend less and ditching a car seems like the easiest way to go. We’re also not saying that we will never again have two cars because honestly I think this can only last so long before one of us (read as me) loses their mind trying to juggle our schedules. My goal is to make it until January with one car and if I haven’t lost my mind by then, we’ll reassess and try to continue for a few more months. If I have lost my mind, we’ll start the debate over what kind of car to get. That’s when everyone will see that I’m not really the spoiled brat in this house, and that jparks, Mr. I Want A Tesla, is and all will be right in the world again.