Purge, Purge, Purge

I once heard the guy on that show about clutter that may or may not be on TLC say something to the effect of this: clutter is an illusion. It's the life you want but not the life you have. As hard as it is to accept this, he is right. I would LOVE to make an awesome trinket box out of the Laughing Cow cheese round box I've been saving for the past two years but I haven't gotten around to it. It's not going to happen because A. I don't make trinket boxes and B. If I had the time to make trinket boxes, I should be working on something else. Therefore, I must let go of the Laughing Cow.

Probably the biggest item on my mega "To Do" list of 2009 is purge. Not the nachos I ate last night (though if I had the bravado I would). I am going to rid myself of all of the unnecessary things I have in my possession. Next weekend, I'm going to have the garage sale to end all garage sales. I'm even going to sell books. "Books?" you ask. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to part with books? I have double copies of many, many works of literature, some in Spanish AND English. Why? In case I come across the right person who needs to read this or that. I'm done with that illusion too. I don't even know people who read in Spanish.

This weekend I went over to my mom's house to address some boxes she had been housing for years (and had been threatening to throw out). Crapatola, I had two file boxes full of letters people had written me. Remember when people used to write letters? Anyway, it's really hard to get rid of awesome postcards, bizarro artwork, and other miscellaneous mail that is probably the best representation of what my life was like between the ages of 17-21, when email was something you'd heard of but hadn't used much. Getting old, getting old.

Anyhow, I couldn't bare to toss that stuff out so it went from one garage to another. Now it's in my space. What the hell do I do with all this stuff? Should I just suck it up and throw it all away or should I save it somehow? Scrapbook it? (Another illusion?) I'm taking suggestions.

Less Wisdom = More Happiness

I got my wisdom teeth removed on Monday. This wasn't something I had planned. My lower left wisdom tooth had been killing me slowly for the past week and it seems all dentists' offices are closed for the last two weeks of the year (must be nice). I was about to go to any chop shop in Tijuana but I figured I would call my dentist first. It was a longshot. Usually, I call in April to make an appointment and they don't have any openings til July. Surprisingly, they took me in. They said they could see me right away.

I went in at 9:30am. By 11:00am, the dentist had removed all four wisdom teeth. Here's the kicker - the post-op drugs cost half of what the stupid surgery cost. $69 for antibiotics? I could have gotten them for five bucks in TJ.

The Vicodin was surprisingly disappointing/unhelpful. The pain would have killed me by now if not for the grace of Anne, who suggested I take some Motrin. I think I am finally at the point now where I no longer need to take painkillers. *I think*. I keep asking John if he thinks I'm becoming an addict. As with every unusual event in my life, I always take it to the extreme and imagine the worst. When I pulled leg muscles in both my legs after my first (and only) spinning class many years ago, I imagined myself never exercising again and turning into a TLC special: The Heaviest Little Mexican in the World. That didn't happen. Yet.

So I started 2009 feeling four teeth lighter. Who needs wisdom anyway? I want ignorant bliss. I want to know DENTISTS remove widsom teeth. I do not want to know most people have their wisdom teeth removed by ORAL SURGEONS.

Good Riddance, Santa Claus!

Thank GOD Christmas has come and gone. This year I had the brilliant idea to make presents for everyone on my list. I ended up making about 70% of the gifts. While the idea sounded really good, it's not an ideal game plan for a serial procrastinator. Anyway, I pulled it off. I think the reviews were mixed. Some people thought their gifts were cool while others were like, "That's cute, now where's my real present?" I anticipated this reaction, which is why I attached this to each homemade gift:

How the Recession Saved Christmas
By M. Reynoso

Once upon a time, this one girl really loved Christmas because it was so much fun. You got to give great presents to your favorite people. She didn't have money to buy expensive things - she was just a little kid. So she made things - awesome things like pictures people kept on their refrigerators for years and plastic neon necklaces people wore to important holiday parties.

Then that girl grew up.

She started getting paychecks and eventually fell into the trap of buying the right gift for everyone on her list - people who already had everything anyway. Gifts ended up in garages (or garage sales). One day, while spending hours brainstorming the right gift for one of her favorite people, she thought, "Christmas really sucks."

And then something magical happened: the economy took a dump.

This was great news for the girl! It would be her chance to take back Christmas - give homemade gifts, blame it on the economy, make Christmas fun again.

So please enjoy this homemade gift. There's a good chance you may never get a store-bought one ever again because Christmas was actually fun this year.

I don't know about that last line. It was kind of a pain in the ass. But the whole notion of getting somebody something fancy just because they got me something fancy is an even bigger pain in the ass because I simply can't afford it. We're in a recession, damnit.

I did give John a homemade present which was, by his standards, the best gift ever. After nearly seven years of begging and pleading, I finally finished and delivered to him our wedding video. He almost cried. No lie.

You Know You Have Issues When...

You procrastinate reading an article on procrastination. Yesterday, my igoogle widget on how to do things posted a link to an article on how to overcome procrastination. I clicked the link. It's up. Just have to get to it... but first I had to write this. I also have to check out the stock market and attend a meeting in four minutes, pay some bills, surf eBay, and on and on.

Lack of Tact Begets Awkward Moment

There's something new to bitch about this week. This weekend, I was bombarded by a bunch of people giving me the case to hurry up and get cracking on having another baby. They say hurry up, don't wait too long, you don't want to change diapers forever. Yeah, I get it. I had the same idea. I tried and it didn't work, so leave me alone. Granted, these are people who didn't know about my recent trip to the hospital.

OK, I know this is fucked up but I was having this very conversation with someone yesterday. She was telling me how I should get pregnant soon and, exclusively in the hope of creating an awkward moment, I told her, "I did get pregnant but I just had a miscarriage." Is that wrong? BTW, I'm pretty sure I succeeded.

Lost Cancun

I had written a super long post about our ridiculous trip to Cancun. I didn't save it and then the computer restarted itself - stupid Microsoft updates - and I lost it. This is life's way of telling me GET OVER IT.

Yoda Was Here

JESUS CHRIST! Who knew? Who knew Halloween was such a big deal? If you don't have your shit locked in by September, your kid's going to be the little dork dressed in the Spiderman costume from Target, without the mask because some asshole stole it. Dally could have been that little dork.

Back in September, I saw a Yoda costume that I thought would be killer. We had originally planned for the dude to be Vader but the Vader for toddlers costume was stupid-looking. A couple of weeks ago, I headed out to Target to pick up his costume and lo and behold, it's sold out - which sucks because that means there are going to be a bunch of other little Yodas out there AND because Dally's got no costume. We could have gone to Old Navy - they always have costumes but while it worked last year for Dally to be a HalloWeenie (a hot dog), their costumes now seem too babyish for the sophisticate that he has grown into.

We tracked a single remaining Yoda costume at the ghetto Target on the other side of town. My mom picked it up, and when I picked her up to go shopping later that day, she said, "I got the costume, but, here's the thing. They gave me ten percent off because the ears are missing." Ten percent off? Target, you cocksucker chain. Half the costume, the half that makes it a Yoda costume and not just a bathrobe, is missing and we get a whopping $1.99 off. My mother, convinced of my craftiness, said I could make the ears. Fine, easy enough. I still think my mom got ripped off but she refused to return the costume.

In typical me fashion, I wait til October 30 to make the costume. I've had the material for a couple of weeks, but I needed those weeks to work up the motivation. Plus, in my mind, it would be a super easy job, because I'm crafty, right? Well, first I had to make my mom a Little Red Riding Hood cape. This is when I was re-introduced to the idea that Leatherface is probably a better seamstress than me. I got the stupid cape done. I think she's only wearing it for a parade early in the morning, so hopefully people will have crust in their eyes and won't look too closely at the seams. Oh, hopefully it doesn't fall apart. I told her it would probably make it through the parade. "But you sewed it together, right?" she asked.

Oh mother, yes, it was sewn, but it wasn't sewn well. And that can make all the difference.

When I started the stupid Yoda ears in the late afternoon, I decided to hand sew - maybe I'd have better results. A professor of mine once said, "Use the right tool for the job." Using a quilting needle was probably not the right tool - but it was all I could find. That sucked. It took me forever to pierce through the fleece. I got lazy and I didn't finish. So no ears for Yoda, right?

Not so fast. Guilt struck at 1am this morning. Back to work I went. I continued the tedious hand sewing but you tend to have less patience at 1am. I convinced myself, "Just try using the sewing machine." Alas, I went back upstairs and went for it. It was disasterous and loud. I suspected Dally would wake up any minute now, telling me how much he hated me for ruining his sleep. But no. I sewed and sewed and I finished the goddamn ears. They're not too pretty. They look like donkey ears or Shrek. But whatever.

You'd think the lesson here is when you see a seasonal item at Target, you should buy it - don't expect it'll be there later. But that's not what I took away from this. My lesson is - GO BIG. Next year, I'm going to make Dally's whole costume! Cross your fingers, for his sake, that I get better at sewing.