Sorry we're late

So you go off the pill. And you try not to get pregnant. But then you stop trying not to. Thinking there's no way you could get pregnant the first time out of the old chute. And then you try not to obsess about it.

But then your very first period without the aid of birth control in the last 14 years is late.

How bout that?

But am I freaking out? Noooooo. Obsessing? Yessssss.

Josh of course, is not fazed in the least. I should be more like him.

In fact, his reponse to my announcement that I am late?

"Well there goes our Asia trip for this fall."

How bout "There goes my drinking for nine months."

Or "There goes my budget of not spending any money to save for the new house."

Or the wildly popular "There goes my ass that I worked so hard to achieve in pilates for the last two years."

Large and in charge

We have returned from Sin City.

While we were there, I did not visit any prostitutes. I did not even see any prostitutes. I did, however, see more silicone breast implants in one weekend than I believe I have seen in my entire life.

Everywhere you looked, it was breasts. Breasts at breakfast, breasts at lunch, breasts in the casino, breasts at the bar, breasts at the buffet. A bounty of breasts.

Now of course, I am not above that kind of thing myself. I wear cleavage shirts. Proudly. Often. But these are surgery-free breasts. They look pretty good in the cleavage shirts. I like them.

But I felt a bit inadequate in Vegas. Everything is larger than life there -- literally, in the case of all those fake breasts.

Now I am all for larger than life -- in many aspects. Big money? Bring it on. Big drinks? May I have another? But big messes -- now that is not good times.

And that is what we encountered to begin our trip. Josh and I arrived in LA on Wednesday night to stay with some friends before we all road-tripped it to Vegas.

We stayed with our friend, Jeff, who has another male roommate. I never thought twice about that before we arrived, choosing to believe (naively) that once men got out of college and into their late 20s, they cleaned their acts up somewhat.

So when Jeff told us in the car that he had cleaned for two hours before we got there, I got a little nervous. When we walked in to find weeks-old bananas and a bevy of fruit flies in his kitchen, I started to sweat.

And then I saw the bathroom.

The bathroom with the stained toilet (I say stained because they appeared to be 37 decades-old rust rings in the bowl), the dirty floor and the moldy sink. I walked in and walked right back out.
Josh gave me a look that said "I'm really sorry I brought you to this place with this bathroom but it's free and it's only for two days" and went back to surfing the net. (The saving grace of this chaos was that we could steal free wireless from a neighbor.)

I grabbed the paper towels and the anti-bacterial spray and I started scrubbing. Three black paper towels later, I made enough headway that I felt I could put my stuff on the sink.

After getting ready for bed, I walked across the sticky hardwood floors and laid down on the futon. (You knew there had to be a futon didn't you?) And as I got ready for bed I was comforted by the buzz of the fruit flies around my head.

At least they weren't larger than life.

Performance enhanced writing

I admit it -- I took steroids.

Yes, steroids. In my eyeball. They enhanced the performance of my sight.

Yesterday, as I watched baseball players testify before congress about their alleged steroid use, it dawned on me that I was a user too. In December and January, I accepted a steroid eye drop to clear up a nasty problem that prevented me from wearing contacts.

And I liked it.

In fact, I plan to go around to schools and tell kids about the benefits of my using. The enhanced vision, the clearness of my sight, the ability to read street signs.

The fact that I was able to benchpress 250 and hit a baseball 475 feet on the fly was, I admit, an odd side effect. But how was I to know? Just because my eye doctor handed me a brown paper bag with the word BALCO on it, who was I to question?

Come on people, just admit it. You took steroids, your head ballooned to the size of a watermelon and you had more acne than a Proactive informercial. Fess up. Come clean. Evangelize about the dangers. Then go home to your millions in the bank and don't give it a second thought.

Now, who wants some of that cream I found in Barry's locker last summer?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Four years ago today, Josh and I met in a Chicago bar.

Now I know most people at this point would say, "And it was love at first sight."

But that's pretty damn schmoopie and we are so not like that. Actually, it was far from it. We talked, he asked for my number, I said I did not give my number out to boys I met in bars, so I gave him my business card. He had taken a picture with me and my sister and then he left.

Without even a wave.

Whatever.

Then that Monday morning, there was an e-mail from him with the photo and the message "Now you can tell all your friends you partied with a rock star."

Four years later, here we are an old married couple, just shy of eight months.

Funny, I guess the Luck O' The Irish was with me that night.

Thanks for the last four years babe. Here's to 54 more!

No pain, no gain

You want to know what's fun times? Sitting around with plastic wrap covering your bikini area while you wait for some topical lidocaine to soak into your skin.

That was what I was doing Saturday morning before I went to get lasered by my dermatologist. Not "beam me up Scotty" lasered, but "singe the hair off my body and my God what is that SMELL" lasered.

When you read the ads for laser hair removal, they always say it feels like the snap of a rubberband on your skin. What they neglect to tell you is that they will snap that rubberband a minimum of 50 times and they will snap it in the most sensitive area of your body.

But the sweet, sweet lidocaine dulls that pain substantially. But the very odd side effect is that you really can't feel your skin. A weird sensation.

The other odd thing is that you must apply the cream 90 minutes before your appointment and then cover the area with plastic wrap. It helps keep the cream from coating the inside of your sweats -- and everybody knows, the last thing you want is sweatpants that can't feel anything.

So I got myself all Saran-wrapped and proceded to waddle around the house, because obviously, you can't walk normally with a half roll of plastic shrink-wrapping wound around your thighs and hips.

Did I overdo it? Perhaps. But you can never be too careful.

The lasering commenced with little pain. Well except for the painful conversation I had with the doctor. I mean really, what can you talk about with a man who is staring intently with magnifying glasses at your crotch and inflicting pain on you?

There's not too much ground to cover -- how are ya, how bout them Cubs, think it's going to warm up anytime soon -- and it was over. Minimum pain, maximum gain. Thanks Doc.

Maybe next time, we can tackle nose hair or something equally as fun.

Cuteness reigns

There's nothing cuter than the cat frantically running in small circles at your feet waiting for you to pour that cup of food into her dish.

Except maybe the cats hanging out in a box, like this.

We win!

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!!

Now, we will be poor. Or this is what I believe. I told Josh I do not want to be poor. He told me that is not going to happen. I asked if we will have to eat Ramen. Then he just got annoyed.

Maybe he will let me use those the $300 in Pottery Barn gift cards he has been hoarding from me to decorate the new house. Except our friend Kevin hates Pottery Barn. In fact, he dropped several expletive-filled tirades on their customer service number after it took three months -- yes, three months -- to get his bedroom set delivered with all the parts in working order. Don't even ask. So he may boycott the new residence if we yuppie it up like we're living in a PB.

I would far prefer the yuppieness of Crate and Barrel. Which is conveniently located just a mere four blocks from our new home, meaning I could carry a leather couch home on my back like a sherpa.

But since we'll be poor, I'll have to settle for carrying a vinyl chair home from a garage sale instead.

Stop or I'll shoot

So we found a house.

We drove alllllll the way back to Chicago from Bloomington this afternoon to see a great house in Lincoln Park. And of course, it was fabulous. Beamed ceilings, stainless steel appliances, washer and dryer in unit. Nice deck.

And of course, other people found the same house and made offers.

Two other people to be exact.

Two people, oh, and some CRIMINALS!

As we are walking around the corner through the alley to see the back of the property, we come upon a scene with a white BMW blocking the alley in front of a black rusty pickup truck and another car behind it.

There's some sort of commotion and we hear someone yell "Shoot him."

Of course, when one hears someone yell "Shoot him" and see a crazed man RUNNING TOWARD you, your first instinct is to see what the hell is going on. The second is to actually turn around and run away yourself.

Which is what we did. However, please let me point out that when we entered the alley, I was walking in front of Josh. So when we turned tail to exit the alley, post haste, Josh was in front of me. AT NO TIME DURING THE "FLEE THE CRAZY CRIMINAL" FOOTRACE DID MY HUSBAND TURN AROUND TO SEE IF I WAS SAFE. (Very reminiscient of the Seinfeld episode where George Costanza bulldozes the kids at a birthday to escape a fire.) Save yourself first Josh, no really.

After the crazy criminal escaped by eluded the off-duty police officer threatening to shoot his ass, we calmly walked back to the house and proceeded to make our offer.

Of course there's no crime in Lincoln Park, that's why we want to live there.

Have another

Change of plans. I am drinking in Vegas! I will be pill-less, but damn it, I can drink. Keep the vodka-pineapples coming casino cocktail waitress!

No baby-making this month. We can always use the excuse that I need to regulate my cycle after going off the pill. Regulators ... mount up.

But this does not help me in the acceptance of The Big Fat Tummy. This is what I call my gut, affectionately. From the angle that I see it, The Big Fat Tummy looks like I may already BE three months pregnant. Not a good look. But of course that's my hunched over looking down view.

Looking in the mirror, with my Pilates posture and minimal sucking in of The Big Fat Tummy, I look fine. I have, however, gained three pounds in the last two weeks. Why, you may ask? Well I have given up fast food and diet soda and started drinking 64 ounces of water and eating at least 25 grams of fiber per day. One might think one would LOSE weight doing that. Au contraire. Not when you add a bowl of Kashi GoLean cereal to your everyday eating, in addition to starting to eat breakfast.

Before, I would eat lunch and dinner and sometimes a dessert. I ate like crap, drank three Diet Cokes a day and pretty much maintained a steady weight since after the honeymoon.

But now, I eat. A lot. In the quest for trying to get in enough fiber, I ate the following every day last week: Oatmeal, fruit smoothie, green tea, an orange, a large salad, leftover pizza, a bowl of GoLean with skim milk, dinner of fish and another salad, ice cream (not every night, but twice). I estimate I was taking in 500 calories at breakfast alone. Not good times.

So now I sit with The Big Fat Tummy. Lamenting it's existence. Wishing we might have considered getting pregnant just so I would have an excuse to have The Big Fat Tummy.

So we had pizza for dinner.

No, what do YOU think?

So Josh and I have been debating -- endlessly it seems -- about whether or not we should start trying to have a baby. Wow, that's just throwing it right out there isn't it?

We knew that my prescription for the pill was going to run out in March. So when I ended my last pack last week, we began dancing around the subject.

"Do YOU think I should take it another month?" I asked for the 1,465th time.

"I don't know, what do YOU think?" he replied.

Literally, we would have this conversation at least another 13 times each day for a week.
So Sunday after I got back from the mall, I informed him we had 42 minutes to make this life-altering decision before the Osco pharmacy closed for the night, therefor eliminating the ability to buy said birth control pills.

After debating the merits of drinking copious amounts of alcohol in Las Vegas at my friend Erin's pre-ception in two weeks, we decided it might be best to get the pills and only take them for two weeks and then go off them. Drinking and Sex-for-Babies (similar sounding to Oil-for-Food, but really nothing like it) all in one -- Brilliant!

So I jumped off the couch and sped over to our neighborhood Jewel Osco and waited at the counter. And looked around -- no pharmacist to be found. It's now 4:58. Down yonder in the liquor aisle, I see a white-coated man walking toward me. Fabulous. Let's get some pills.

When he came to the register, he looked at me and informed me I was cutting it very close and that he was already closing. Using my best flirty girl attitude, I informed him that my prescription refill was for BIRTH CONTROL PILLS and obviously, seeing as it was Sunday evening, I needed them NOW. Or I could not start them on time, duh.

His response was that he did not have enough time.

"You don't have enough time? All you have to do is pull the pack off the shelf and slap a sticker on it," I pointed out.

He then began to sternly lecture me, telling me that they did not, in fact, even HAVE my type of pills on hand. They had to be special ordered. Right, because the last 22 times I have come to this particular pharmacy to pick up my pills they had to be special ordered.

Whatever.

So I thanked him for his time (no, I actually just rolled my eyes and gave a sarc "thanks") and walked to the Easter candy aisle. And as I stared at the Peeps and the Malted Milk eggs, debating the merits of buying some so far before Easter, I called Josh and informed him the Osco Pharmacist had just made the decision to conceive for us.

Giddy up.

Then it hit me.

No drinking. No drinking? NO DRINKING!

Lord help me. I am going to Vegas, baby, Vegas for the very first time and I can't drink? This is insanity. I then listed all the events I would want to drink at in the coming months: several weddings, baseball games, the Final Four, Girls Night Out, Arbor Day. It's a plot against me. Who knew you couldn't even drink when you were just TRYING to get pregnant? No one tells you that in health class.

And what does the man of this relationship announce as I lament the un-fun-ness of my life unfolding before my very eyes?

"Too bad for you, because I am going to be having one fun summer."

So, can you get me tickets?

OK, so how does one begin a blog? Do you just launch right in, as if assuming that everyone in the world knows all about you (self-obsessed and self-important, yes) or do you bore everyone to death with the background and particulars of every minute, boring aspect of your life?
For those who know me, there could be no other choice than to dive right in. It's all about me, you know.

So to begin it all, a story form last night's beer-fueled outing. We seem to have a lot of beer-fueled outings. Not that we are alcoholics, but we like to go out and have fun. We're young -- OK, not really young because being 31 and almost-30 is not young but we like to think we are -- and childless and we have disposable income to waste on things like shots and taxis.

Last night Josh and I and several friends attended a rocking good time party at a bar in Iowa. Ok, it wasn't really in Iowa, it was on Western and Chicago. It may as well have been Iowa. But it was a little singles event -- if you were a single girl, you brought a single guy along with you. If you were a single guy, you brought a single girl. If you were married, you brought as many single people as you could wrangle and watched them all mix.

So we brought our good friends Nancy and Kevin. Nancy was calling it the "Swap Meet" all week long. We also brought along our married friends, Tom and Leah, for even more fun. After arriving at the Black Beetle, we immediately commenced with the "meeting of the singles." That is, the girls started the scoping on behalf of Nancy and the boys made a beeline for the Golden Tee in the corner.

The beers were flowing freely as we searched high and low for some "mens" for Nancy. After a few false starts -- one guy was actually hitting on me (HELLO wedding ring), another guy was married, another was too short, then she could not find anyone cute in a 25-foot radius -- we found Blue Shirt.

Blue Shirt was kinda cute and tall enough and seemed to be a normal fellow. After threatening Nancy with bodily harm if she did not speak to Blue Shirt, we started talking to Blue Shirt's sidekick, Short Guy. We told him we were professional Golden Tee players and that Nancy was the reigning champ of the Midwest. Short Guy was wearing a sticker on his shirt and because I was sick of waiting for Nancy to make her conversational move, I took the sticker off of Short Guy and stuck it to Blue Shirt. It was a sticker with a gold ribbon and the words "Best in Show." Whatever works. Conversation ensured, good times all around.

I looked over and said "Yea or nay?" to Nance and she says "Nay, I think." Leah says "OH!" behind me. I think nothing of it.

So Leah and I are standing off to the side. Leah says, totally straightfaced, "Wow, if he likes sports, I am surprised he is gay."

I almost spit my beer out. "You think he's gay?" I asked.

"Well that's what Nancy said," Leah said.

I am now dying laughing and said to Leah, "She said 'I think it's nay.' Not 'I think he's GAY.'"

Leah also is now in hysterics and Nancy thinks we're lunatics, but she can't get away from Blue Shirt, who has now changed his tune and is acting VERY interested.

Let me interject that Nancy does not tell men what she does. Nancy is a sports writer, and feels that makes her a party trick to men what with the knowing of the ERAs and Handicaps and Fourth-down Conversion statistics, so she rarely tells men what she actually does for a living. Well Blue Shirt was playing it cool until he asked what she did. The words "sports writer" were barely out of her mouth and the body language was doing a 180.

In little more than 5 minutes, he uttered The Phrase That Kills All Chemistry: "So, can you get me some Opening Day tickets?"

Nancy gave the annoyed "you are a cretin and you will be the last person I get tickets for" look and ended the conversation. I quipped that was certainly poor clock management on his part to ask so early on in the relationship.

So Blue Shirt, wherever you are, may I please suggest you get your tickets for Opening day like every other Cubs fan -- hit eBay my man.