Had the stars aligned differently, I would have been a leggy 5’10 with a flat stomach, perky, large breasts, thick, wavy, dark hair and big blue eyes. And by stars aligned, I mean the genetic shitshow that was my embryonic mitosis would have needed to pick the best from the colliding gene pools, not just stood by and let the uglies battle the pretties until there was compromise.

Both of my parents have some gems in the gene pool. On my dad’s side, there is thick hair, coveted eye color, Hooters worthy racks, legs for miles and calves that make rugby teams pea green with envy. On my mother’s side there is petite bone structure, flat stomachs and a some weird phenomenon that keeps the women from wrinkling. (Eventually we do “melt” a little, but there is none of that crepe paper creasing.)

But there is also the dark side.

When the Carsey side puts on weight (that’d be my dad’s side), we put it on from the pelvic bone up. Eventually, and at family reunions especially, it’s like a gathering of ping pong balls running around on toothpicks. For a lucky few, it’s more like an Idaho potato on stilts… And there’s the invisible chin. It’s a like a ninja. You know it’s there, but you can never see it.

As for mom’s side, there is a genetic mutation that actually erases calves from the body. It’s a miracle that we can even walk or climb stairs because there is no support from the heel to the knee. There is also The Nose. Many a woman has married into the family only to realize that her off spring run the risk of getting The Nose. It’s enough to scare you into not having children at all. And, of course, The Nose wouldn’t be complete were it not for The Brows. Like two obese caterpillars desperate to meet on the Bridge.

The good news is that it’s possible to get the good stuff. Theoretically, I could have been the aforementioned dish. The bad news is that it’s possible not to get the good stuff.

But that’s not what this is about.

I got breasts the size of black heads and hair that Locks for Love doesn’t even want. My mother offered to get my little brother a chin implant after he got his braces off because even she couldn’t find the ninja chin. (On her very own child!) What could have been two Adonises and an Athena turned out to be Chinless, Calfless, and The Nose. My whole life I’ve been glad that I didn’t have a sister because the thought of having one child who won the genetic lottery would have been too much to bear. My brothers and I get along because it’s understood that at the end of the day, none of us is really winning the race.

Fortunately, I finally realized around age 20 that things weren’t going to change. I cast off my Victoria’s Secret lies for comfy sleeper bras and stopped trying to show off an asset I didn’t have. I eventually found a hair dresser who told me honestly that my hair was terrible and cut it so that it could at least live a life of dignity. (Debatable, but still.) My parents were kind enough (merciful) enough to trim the nose by about a third so that at least no one confused me with an Orthodox Jew. (Don’t get me wrong, love the Jews.)

An so began my life of (semi) acceptance. Sure, there are times that I lament the fact that I don’t look like a prom queen or that bathing suits aren’t accented by an ample bosom, but it is what it is. Eventually, actually, I began to enjoy my small breastedness. My style revolves around my itty bitty titty so much so that of all the plastic surgeries I could have, breast augmentation wouldn’t be one of them.

So imagine my surprise when suddenly my breasts began to show some enthusiasm for growth. Not two days into birth control and they felt like they’d been beaten with mallets. By the end of the first week I’d taken to moaning out in pain and accidentally cupping them during meetings and client presentations. My demure sleeper bras suddenly looked like lewd underaged porn lingerie, breast bursting forth. To make matters worse, I couldn’t accept them as my own. They were an alien appendage, ruining my personal style and inflicting pain into normal activities.

I’d (as unsexually as humanly possible) had the hubs assess them. I wasn’t crazy, right? They were taking over. (Relatively speaking, of course. It’s not like I’m knocking people over with my knockers…) No, no, he assured me. They were really coming into their own.

Since that time, my new breasts have given me a whole new perspective. I suddenly understand the sports bra and it’s purpose. No longer it enough to have some cotton pullover number from GAP. I need something to keep those bitches in place. Otherwise? No jumping rope. No jogging. No quick movements of any kind. None. I’m practically an invalid.

Today before my yoga practice, I pointed out my new tatas to my yoga instructor. See? Do you see? THEY ARE TAKING OVER! Turns out, he had noticed. (A GAY MAN NOTICED MY NEW BREASTS.) He even suggested that I take caution doing handstand, as I’d passed into the danger zone. A zone that is only open to women whose breasts may, if not tended to, fall out in handstand.

I was outraged. It was one thing to take away jump roping. Another to strip me of my lesbian chic style. But to fuck with my yoga practice?

UGH.

I understand that many girls dream of bigger breasts. They want ample apples so that they will be desirable to young boys and perverts, but I want my girls back. The ones that we’re related to the Ninja Chin. I want to know they are there, but just never see them.

Is that asking too much?

Christians love Sundays and that makes sense to me. If I worshiped cake and someone told me that every Sunday for the rest of my natural born life (and the not-so-natural one, come to think of it) I’d be able to get up and spend time with cake, I’d be all like, “Fuck yeah, I’ll totally wake up at 7AM to go hang out with a bunch of people and give cake the attention it so deserves.”

But since that’s not the situation ’round these parts, Sundays are days of silent suffering.

Side note: I generally don’t believe in qualifying on the blog, after all, if you don’t want to hear my thoughts on something, I’d suggest you not come to my blog and read them at will, but I also understand that until I’m validated by some higher writing authority (say a publication), I do, from time to time, feel it’s appropriate to… clarify.

So, before I get all Chief from One Flew Over, let me say that I do not dread my life or my job for any other reason than that I have low self esteem and am CERTAIN that at any moment someone is going to figure out that I’m useless and my life will spin into a pit of irrevocable despair. Some of you are thinking to yourself, “wow. I think she needs to get on a little something.” To which I’ll let you know that I am on something, while others of you might be thinking, “get a grip” To which I cannot more emphatically tell you that I am trying. Seriously. I am.

So, Sundays.

Sundays are “put your ill-fitting High Functioning hat on” days. I intentionally remove the hat around 4:30 on Friday because I’ve been wearing it since the Sunday before and it gives me a psychosomatic headache just like those cheap plastic headbands that you can buy in three packs at the CVS. For 1.25 blissful days I get to swim in my personal pool of low expectations, sleeping late and answering simple questions like what kind of beer I’d like, or which place to order pizza from at 2AM. Plus, living with a quiet husband and a cat with no ability to communicate save playing in the toilet when he’s stressed, I don’t have to do much explaining. They know I’m useless. And that’s okay.

But come Sunday, it’s time to get serious. All that flitting around and pretending to be carefree is over. It’s not a weekend. IT’S A SCHOOL NIGHT. And that means you get your shit together, you get ready for the week ahead, and you try to get in bed by midnight.

So here’s how that translates for me:

Sometime between 9 – 11 AM: The subconscious dread. As the clock marches towards wake up time, my subconscious seizes the opportunity to torture me. Dreams about me being president suddenly turn into dreams about an obstacle course through quickly hardening cement. And my partner (the one I have to finish with in order to win the $50,000 prize) is a 650lb black woman in a HoverRound.

At that point there is no reason to embrace the morning and sleep in. It’s best to get up. Whatever additional sleep is possible will be fitful and plagued. How the hell am I going to win $50, 000 when my partner cannot see her own vagina?

The late morning and mid afternoon: These moments are filled with hope and inspiration. What will be in my future? A jog perhaps? A trip to the grocery store followed by a few hours of prepping meals for the week and cleaning the apartment? Maybe a good vacuuming or dusting would help us start off on the right foot.

No. None of those things will happen. Here’s is what will: paralyzing captivation with whatever bullshit is on Lifetime or USA. Followed, obviously, by at least an hour and a half of guilt and remorse for wasting the most productive hours of the afternoon on stories about babies who were switched at birth or some girl named Nancy who would rather be dead than eat a bagel. (Not judging. I love an eating disorder as much as the next person.)

So then I decide to jog. Because when you’ve wasted your final day of rest watching reruns of L&O:SVU and Facebook stalking your high school friends, there is only one thing that can right the wrong. Exercise. I usually make it to the bridge before either my asthma takes over or the leftovers I had for breakfast reach the staging area and I make a panicked, waddling, beeline back to my house.

By then it’s probably at least 4PM and my zest for the day is fading as the reality of my future sets in. What detail of my personal or work life did I blatantly overlook during the weekend that will likely cause everything to go boom? Why haven’t I made it to the grocery store? WHY DOESN’T STUART LOVE ME AS MUCH AS HE LOVES THE HUBS?

It’s at this point that I’ll probably stress eat something. And turn the TV back on to see if whomever is being showcased on Lifetime has it worse than me.

And then it’s evening. Oh evening.

There is always at least 2.5 hours of work. Unbillable, as it usually requires me going obsessively over my emails and creating little charts to make myself feel better. I always realize that what I thought was plenty of time on a project is in fact not enough time at all and what I should have been doing ALL WEEKEND LONG was buckling down and being an adult. There is always an internal monologue that sounds like something like the one you heard in that video they played in 8th grade Health class, right before the teacher gave you the speech about reaching out when you needed help.

By now the hubs realizes that his wife is gone and has been replaced by the transition woman. She’s the one who stays over while Saturday Caroline is being replaced by Monday Caroline. The transition woman is a hot mess. For starters, she’s a killjoy. Not only does she have the power to kill joy, she actually has the power to keep joy from being born. And she has rules. Very, very strict rules. And she’s manic. Between 7-9 PM all creatures of man and fur need to be helpful or get the hell out of the way. Things need to get done and if they don’t get done they are going to be blamed on everyone but Monday Caroline. Food needs to be planned for the week. Bedroom needs to be picked up to ensure a good start. The kitchen needs to be cleaned. The living room organized. And there is dinner. And bedtime. And ambitions for the week.

Cue Jessie Spano from Saved by the Bell.

As midnight approaches– the outlined bedtime for optimal week startage– the panic sets in.

Just a few more hours. Okay, okay, okay. One more. Just one more. Maybe just one more episode. Or maybe I’ll read. Or maybe if I could just get this one thing organized I’d sleep better. OH! Maybe I’ll do some crafts! I love crafts!

:::This is usually around the time that I start telling myself how I only need 4-5 hours of sleep. A stark contrast from morning Caroline, who vows to go to bed at 9:30 for the rest of her life.” :::

This is ridiculous, Caroline. What do you think happens in the Army? Do you think those men and women fighting for your safety get to sleep for 9 hours a night? NO! No they don’t! And don’t you think that if they were home safe in their beds they would embrace the opportunity to enjoy one of life’s little pleasures and stay up and watch a little more TV and do some crafts? Yes. Yes they would. That’s exactly what our service men and women would do. Crafts. At midnight on a Sunday. Besides, you obviously need to do work for a few more hours or you won’t be ready for the week. And you know what happens then… YOUR WHOLE LIFE WILL BE OVER! Mwhahahahahaha.

And that was  just a sample monologue. I’m sitting here at 12:07 and I’m already worried about my Thursday workout. And what the weather is going to be on Saturday. And whether or not I should be worried about my nails chipping and make a proactive appointment for midweek or wait and see what happens. And what happens if the hubs comes home tonight and eats the leftovers in the fridge and I don’t have anything for lunch tomorrow and I don’t wake up early enough to make something? And are my bananas at the optimal ripedness for my oatmeal tomorrow morning? I hate it when they are too green. The flavor isn’t deep enough.

And then. And then. And then. And then.

I just need Monday to get here so Monday Caroline can take over and worry about this stuff.

 

Preface:

I believe I’ve talked about it before, but I can’t find the post and it’s way easier to just tell you again than go back through five years of posts just to show you the last time I mentioned my first mental breakdown. The summer after my freshman year of college was a toughie. My life went kerplunk when I learned I wasn’t Asian and then failed organic chemistry. I wasn’t going to be a doctor and my chem professor suggested I be an English major or something “nice” and I just kind of stood there and next thing I knew I was drinking beer in a frat house listening to a bunch of Phys Ed majors tell me about their life plans. So, I went back to Texas and did what any overachieving failure would do: tried to live in a one bedroom apartment with three other girls. Anyway, the point of all this is to tell you that two things stand out about that summer: my mental breakdown in my closet, amongst my beloved shoes, and my chosen method for coping with the loss of my identity: reading.

No, no. Not leisurely reading of New York Times Bestsellers, but panicked, manic reading. Day and night I would read. If I started a book in the morning I was certain I had to finish it before I went to bed. I would read through the night and into the next day. I read War & Peace and Anna Karenina over a four day bender. In a matter of 30 days I read nearly 50 books. Loser doesn’t even scratch the surface.

It was then that I met Mr. Vonnegut. And every book he ever wrote. All these years later, I continue to believe that Mr. Vonnegut and I could have be the best of friends should things have worked out differently. (And, for starters, he not died.) Moreover, I believe that he and I could connect on a deeply spiritual level whilst conversing about WTF is going on with the universe and who is behind the madness. A favored quote from Breakfast of Champions, ” The Creator of the Universe had put a rattle on its tail. The Creator had also given it front teeth which were hypodermic syringes filled with deadly poison. Sometimes I wonder about the Creator of the Universe.”

Kurt, I too want to know what the fuck is going on with The Creator of the Universe.

************

Today was an interesting day. For starters, I had to make the hubs really, really anxious right before his Big Interview by telling him not to do that “awkward handshake thing he does” and then not be able to adequately explain it so he could not do it. I would have offered him a Xantex or something, but the hubs is clean. He doesn’t like drugs. Or herbal laxatives, as I learned last week.

Then, to ensure that his confidence was wasted, I blamed the demise of my entire future on his inability to remember to buy ink for our home printer. Something I like to do every few months at a time when it’s completely ridiculous to believe that he can do anything about it. (“What do you need to print?” he asks. “EVERYTHING I’VE EVER NEEDED TO PRINT. THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS IN THE WORLD. RIGHT NOW. BABY ELEPHANTS WILL BE SLAUGHTERED IN SIX MINUTES.” I say. Or something equally as rational and compelling.)

Oh, also. I woke up at 7AM ready to start the week and felt like a reheated shit casserole. I was nauseated, hot, and I’d managed to sweat all over my new feather bed. I felt really sorry for myself because I was really counting on this morning being the one that would restore my faith in my ability to function as a normal adult. Fail.

I did decide to get out of bed and do the things I had planned for the morning. I made some wheat berry and lentil soup for the week, did some work that I neglected to do over the weekend, read some emails, and sneezed a remarkable twelve times in a row. (I also emailed work to let them know that my pansy ass would not be coming in. Who needs job security in a recession? Obviously not me.)

By 9:45 I was exhausted. I told the hubs that I was going to get into bed and take and nap and that he was to wake me up in an hour and a half. At which time I would assess whether or not I wanted to get out of bed. It was the best plan that I’d had all day. And it was still early.

Almost exactly an hour and a half later, the hubs comes in to tell me that it’s time for me to get out of bed, both because it’s time and because he’s sort of disgusted with me and needs me to get up in order to keep on loving me. While we were debating whether I really was going to get out of bed, we heard Stuart avidly engaged with something in the hall. These few years of parenting Stuart have taught us that anything that Stuart’s excited about is likely breakable and probably valuable. So, the hubs, doing his due diligence, goes into the hall to see what fuckerface is up to.

A moment later he pops back into the bedroom with something in his hand.

“What’s this?”

“What’s what?”

“This thing I’m holding right in front of your face.”

“Looks like a pill. Why? Where did you get it.”

“Stuart.”

“Let me see it.”

<SILENCE. DEAFENING SILENCE.>

“OMFG. It’s a birth control pill.”

I know what you’re thinking. Did your cat get into your birth control? Did he eat it? Is is bad for him? Is this about you having to take him to the cat hospital to have estrogen pumped from his tummy before he sprouted tits and dropped some octaves from his voice?

No. I wish that was what this story was about.

This story is about two people standing (well, I was still lying) in their bedroom rapidly retracing the last four weeks to get a grip on what this little teensy tinsy white pill could possibly mean for the future. Our eyes locked and there seemed to be agreement. It meant nothing. We would move on. We’d know if there was a problem.

So the hubs went on his merry little way, preppy for his interview and stressing about his unexplained, but guaranteed queer handshake thing and I began the slow decent into madness. As the minutes ticked on I grew more panic stricken. My internal monologue went from a lulled, self pitying stream to a tsunami of crazy.

“Oh god. Oh god. You are fine. This is silly. Women know. You can’t grow a human-fucking-being without knowing. That’s a rule of nature. But, oh my god, oh my god. I woke up nauseated. Oh my god. I have morning sickness. Why didn’t I see it? And I didn’t want oatmeal for breakfast this morning and I ALWAYS want oatmeal for breakfast. My palate is changing. Oh shit. I ate a leftover piece of pizza on Friday and I didn’t like it. But I had the same pizza the day before and loved it. My breasts. They are tender. Oh shit. Am I going to start lactating? Do I crave pickles? Oh fuck. I think I want a pickle. PICKLES PICKLES PICKLES. I got a zit last week. I never get zits. Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. This is terrible. I’m pregnant. OMFG. Julie is going to get a kick out of this. What about the Santa Speedo Run? I guess that’s out. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We’re going to St. Thomas in THREE WEEKS. Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. I’ve been drinking. I SMOKED POT OUT OF A SINK. My baby is retarded. I can’t raise a retarded child. I’m not a good enough person. I’m hungry. I just ate breakfast and I’m hungry. THAT’S WHY I WAS EATING ALL THOSE CUPCAKES OVER MY BIRTHDAY! OMG. My birthday. My birthday. I drank so much. I played DARTS. The fetus is scuba diving in Rapscallion Honey Brew. I can’t believe we didn’t see this. What am I going to do? I’m pregnant with a mentally disabled child. I think we have to move to Texas.”

The hubs walked in from his office to see what I was up to.

“Nothing.” I managed. “Just doing some work.”

“Oh my god. How am  going to tell him? What am I going to tell him? He’s going for an interview an he has no idea what’s riding on it. YOU HAVE TO SUPPORT A CHILD NOW. Oh my god. I can’t have sushi. And we’re supposed to have fish tacos for dinner. Oh my god. Oh shit. Oh my god. I think I need some tea. Can I have tea in my condition?”

I managed to keep my melting psyche to myself so that the hubs could get to his interview without the burden of his nameless, unborn child weighing upon his every answer, but it was clear that I was weekday TLC programming away from a hysterical phone call to my mother to tell her how I’d gotten knocked up and nothing was ever going to be right again.

So I sat there. Silently. Flicking my abdomen and noticing how obvious it was that I was pregnant.

Eventually hubs texted to let me know that he had gotten ink for the printer. Calculating where in the city that meant he was, I quickly texted him back. “Woo! How about a baby test just to ease our minds?”

“Fine.” he replied. “But you’re getting the cheapest one.”

I told him it didn’t matter, but to please make sure it was passably reputable.

About a half an hour later I was using a perfectly good juice glass to confirm the existence of our mentally deficient triplets.

As I sat on the couch trying to busy myself for three minutes I started wondering what the hell The Creator of the Universe was doing to me. What kind of sicko orchestrates a pregnancy notification via cat?

I walked into the bathroom with lead feet. I thought I was going to fall over. And there is was. Just the one line. The “don’t you worry, little lady, we know you’re not capable of hosting another human being” line.

The hubs popped his head in to see how things had turned out.

“One line. As expected. We’re in the clear.”

“See. I told you. And you made me waste $11.”

 

No, I’m not coming out of retirement. Nor am I having a baby. But I happened by the blog today (the domain is about to expire and I needed to update my credit card information) and saw that I’m getting about three readers a day at this point. I know that Jesus says that one matters, but in blogland, anything less than 1,000 and you’re a loser. No matter what Jesus says.

Turns out, semen is in the water these days. Everyone is getting knocked up. And those who aren’t knocked up just haven’t had the chance because they’re too busy planning their weddings so that they can get knocked up. It’s insane. I know that it’s not unnatural, but it is hard to come to terms with the fact that the next chapter of your life is nipping at your heels. Or, in this case, a Doberman with rabies who is chasing you around a small, fenced-in space, reminding you that no matter how fast you run, you’re going to get tired and that doggy is going to eat. you. alive.

This weekend the hubs and I took a trip out to the Newton Wellesley Hospital to visit our dear friend (and fellow, though legit, blogger) Julie Q. In the two hours spanning the before during and after, the hubs and I became closer than either of us thought possible.

It started on Saturday night when I told him that I had rented a Zipcar for the following morning. He responded with his perfunctory “why?” the one that has been my constant companion these seven years. It wouldn’t matter if Obama gave me a signed note, allowing me to do whatever my heart desired, the husband would trample on it with that one word, “why?” The power it wields over me is other wordly. In a word, he manages to bring my ridiculous existence into question, force me to identify the least functioning parts of myself, and second guess everything I believe to be true. Rather than answer like an adult, I usually go straight to my sassy cheerleader. WHY? WHY DO YOU THINK? DO I LIKE HAVE TO HAVE A REASON FOR EVERYTHING? YOURE SO OPPRESSIVE. YOURE LIKE ONE OF THOSE HUSBANDS ON DR.PHIL. JUST LET ME BE! LET ME DO WANT I WANT.

Yep, Caroline, you totally won that one.

I digress. He “why’d” me and I responded like a child that I had told him like a million times that we were going to the hospital to visit the new baby. You know what he did then? Why’d me a second time. I nearly broke a bottle of Pretty Things Babytree over his head and left him unconscious at the bar.

“Because. These are the types of things that people our age do. We go see babies.”

He said something about how I made up rules and made him follow them, which is likely true, but it was too late the cancel the Zipcar and frankly I thought it would be good for us to go and do it. Babies, yay!

The car was reserved for 11:30, but after smoking pot out of a sink at 2AM in Dorchester and then falling asleep on the porch during my two hour wait for a taxi, the earliest I was able to get up was noon. Which I did. I put on clothes, decided not to say anything to the hubs about looking like a homeless college student since I was about to use Trident as toothpaste and was on my second round of trying to rub the Merlot off my lips. I asked him to figure out how to get there and off we went. To the Maternity Ward.

Oh man. You would have thought that we stumbled upon the floor fr infectious diseases. In route to the room, we got very, very lost. In an effort to get back on track we wove through every beaming baby room on the floor. With each “It’s a Boy” balloon it got creepier. I made the mistake of making some sideways comment about pregnancy that incited a father to point at his 34687 weeks pregnant wife and give me the “you have no respect for human life” look. I felt bad. I did.

We arrived at the room and proceeded to stand there awkwardly, waving off any attempts by the proud new parents to have us hold the wee babe. I think the hubs was holding his breath, both because he didn’t know what to do and because he thought the whole thing might be catching.  (In the car, his questions had turned technical as he wondered whether she had “moaned and pushed or just cut it out.”) We also didn’t bring a gift of any kind, so we were basically intrusive statues. We may as well have been medical observers. No gifts, no help with the baby. Just standing there. Panic stricken.

When it was time to go, we walked through the halls like frightened sheep. The hubs looked over at me right as we were about to exit the floor and said, “I just need to leave. I thought we were going to come here and see a bunch of older people and grown ups with babies. The only thing here is a bunch of people our age with babies. And it’s fucked up.”

Noted. We were on our way out.

The conversation on the ride home was sparse at best. Occasioinally one of us would make a comment like, “wow. their lives are totally about to change.” or “man, can you believe that, they are parents.” all the while staring ahead, ignoring the conversation that was inevitably to take place.

When, young Beaulieus, do you plan on becoming parents?

I wasn’t going to breech the topic because, if you’ve ever met the hubs you know, he does not like surprise attacks. The vision of a friend with a baby was enough to push him over the edge and if I so much as HINTED to wanting to have a baby he would likely roll out of the car… on the highway.

The day continued with no mention of the 800lb baby in the room. When we crawled into bed, I thought maybe we’d have a profound regroup, make some decisions and go to sleep thinking about what the future held. But before the words could even come out of my mouth, he spoke.

“Don’t even tell me you want one of those.”