Perfection, You're an Asshole

You know how the universe speaks to you?  Well, the universe was hitting me over the head with a shovel yesterday.  Okay, I get it, universe, you can stop shoveling me!

It started when Rob sent me this article about perfectionism and how many problems it causes us.  Then I was cruising facebook and read this article Anne Lamott wrote about... Perfectionism.  Then I was channel surfing in the afternoon and Katie Couric had on a dame that wrote a book about the perils of... Perfectionism.  All of these things were unrelated, not like when you see the same actor on every talk show in the same week pimping the same movie.  And I didn't go looking for any of them (or did I?)

So I asked myself, after the second run in with perfectionist dogma, why is this coming into my life today?  What am I supposed to take from this besides the obvious?

I do not consider myself a perfectionist.  I'm an eye baller, not a measurer.  I don't beat myself up over failures, I'm more of an "oh well." type.  However, I do take pleasure when I get things perfect.  My own measurement of perfection, not anyone else's.  I like things to be just so, and I have to talk myself down a little bit when they're not.  I like rules and parameters and un-ambiguous answers.  In class recently, we've done a color theory section and we had to mix paints and make a color wheel.  I hated it.  I like 2 + 2 to equal 4, and that's not the way it works in color mixing.  It was crazy making.  This is why I like baking better than cooking: Cooking uses a recipe as a guide, and then you "salt to taste."  I am paralyzed by salting to taste.  Or, you're supposed to go to your local farmers market and buy what's fresh and in season and make it work.  This does not work for me.   I like the recipe to be the gospel, and I never deviate from it.  That's baking.  

I think my daughter suffers from perfectionism.  She has a history of being good at everything at the first try, and when she isn't, she gives up in less than a minute.  Then she beats herself up because she can't do stuff, or she's not perfect at it.  This causes a lot of anxiety.  I've been wondering what, besides hormones, is causing her anxiety, and I think the universe was trying to speed up the process of discovery yesterday.  Thanks, universe.

Have I made her a perfectionist?  I mostly brag about what a total loser I am, so it doesn't seem like I have, but I probably have, what with my baking and my math.  But why doesn't she focus on the things I'm terrible at?  Like planning what's for dinner and cleaning the grout in the bathroom? And eating a healthy diet and exercising?  I'm a complete failure at those things! I am the most mediocre gardener in the world, and I almost let a baby fall down the stairs one minute in to a babysitting gig the other day.  Brick stairs, not carpeted.

Parenting is hard.  And I don't want to hear anyone bragging about how they are a perfectionist.  Its a DISEASE!  Read the articles, and tell me you don't see yourself or your kid in there.  I dare you.

Can I be Done?

It has been a busy morning.  I have gone grocery shopping, dropped things off at the vet, and gone to the pharmacy (which was closed.)  When I came home, I did laundry, cleaned up the house, scrubbed the stove, installed a hanger in the closet for my new vacuum cleaner, and paid bills.  I'm not done yet.  There is more stuff to clean up, and I want to actually use the new vacuum, and there's laundry to fold, and I still have to go to the pharmacy.  

When it is enough?  When can I be done?  I am pooped, my feet hurt, and my hands smell like rubber gloves.  I really like to start the weekend with a full fridge, clean laundry, and a tidy house.  Its easier to relax that way.  But, man, what a pain in the ass.  

So, I'll put in two more hours, one and half minimum, and then I'm done for the day.  Enough is enough.  By Monday morning, this whole house will look like a tornado went through it, anyway.  Dishes will be piled up, the stove will be greasy, there will be clothes and crap everywhere, and I'll have to clean up all over again.  What the hell is the point?  And don't get me started on Leila's room: she hasn't gotten sick of living in a shit hole yet, and none of her dirty laundry made it in to the hamper for laundry day today.  

Have a good weekend, everybody

The Easter Bunny is Dead

The other day was Easter.  The week before was a crazy busy one with a big family wedding and all that those entail, so I was not super psyched to get up at the crack of dawn and hide plastic Easter eggs, lovingly filled with chocolate, all over the yard.  But the effing Easter bunny was still alive and well in my daughter's heart, so what could I do?  I think it was heroic of me to even remember to get Easter candy at all, even if the dog did suss out the reases pieces and eat them all like a little pig.

There was no ritualistic getting down of the Easter box and wrestling with the plastic Easter eggs to fit tops to bottoms.  Oh no.  I went outside around 7:30 in the morning, and tossed foil-wrapped chocolate eggs all over the lawn from the balcony, and then went down to "hide" some things in the bushes.  Done.

Leila had slept on the couch for the second night in a row because I hadn't had time to put her clean sheets on her bed.  She asks me "Did you hide stuff in the yard for me?"

I have been waiting for about three years to be finally done with the Easter Bunny and his cohorts.  It was wonderful and cute while she was little, but I'm tired of all that sneaking around now, and I just want to hand her her presents and be done with it.

So I say, "What's that now? Are you asking me if I'm the Easter bunny?" Yes.  Yes she was.  So I said, "Yes, I am the Easter bunny." and she says, "What other magical creatures are you?  Like, are you the tooth fairy?" and I said, "Yes, I am the tooth fairy."  Then she says, "Don't ruin Christmas."

We went outside to "search" for the eggs that I'd strewn all over the lawn, and they were gone.  I asked L if she had already gone outside, but she hadn't, and then we saw a scrub jay hovering over us looking guilty.  Damn bird stole all the chocolate eggs!  Can you believe it?  The bird did not, however, steal the kit kats, or the DVD of Talladega Nights hidden behind the garden box.

So there it is: No more Easter bunny, she's lost all her teeth, and the jig is up with Santa Claus, too.  Thank you Easter bunny! Bawk bawk!!

Harumph

Today is one of those days where nothing on the to-do list is remotely interesting or fun, its all tedious chores that no one wants to do.  This includes having to go to the DMV.  How do you face a day like this?  I just want to go back to bed, but, to add a wrinkle, there are roofers banging around on my roof and jostling my house, so I don't feel like I can go back to bed and watch TV because what if they see me?  They're working their butts off on the roof, and I'm lounging around with the ladies of The View?  Same goes for taking a shower.  I don't want to be naked in my house when there's a bunch of guys going up and down ladders.  What if they punch a big hole in the roof of the bathroom and they're all waving at me in the shower, like, "hello, lady!"

I know this is a first world kind of day, but we first worlders are allowed to whine, a little bit, sometimes, about having to chat with the dishwasher repair man for the third time in three weeks while he tries to get the dishwasher to work.

And the DMV? That shit's not funny.  My front license plate disappeared from my car.  Now, I would be fine cruising around without a front plate, but my recent speeding ticket has made me paranoid, so I have to surrender the remaining license plate, and order a new one.  I wonder how much that's gonna cost me.

Oh, and Tuesday I did online traffic school.  Talk about a pain in the ass. Did you know that they've changed their minds about the 10 and 2 position?  All these years I've been driving recklessly at 10 and 2, and now they tell me is 9 and 3 or 8 and 4 because of the air bags.  I tried driving this way yesterday and, no sir, I did not like it.  It feels wrong.

So that's the short story of my upcoming day.  I also have to clean out the fridge, and I should organize my closet, but I just don't know if I can handle that today.  I'm in no mood.  I hope my dishwasher works and I perk up.  I just can not do any more dishes by hand.  Screw that.

How's your day?  Anything fun I can be jealous of?

Missing: Bumble Bee Earrings

Rob and I are conducting an experiment.  Leila is sloppy youngster, like most youngsters, and cleaning her room is about the most oppressive thing that can happen to her.  She doesn't put away clean laundry, she doesn't put dirty laundry in the hamper, she leaves her crap all over the house, she loses homework and bike lock keys and her cell phone and her new earrings and all other sundry.  She sleeps under piles of clothes and books, and doesn't seem to mind.

So, Rob says, "I wonder how long it would take her to decide to clean her room on her own if we just didn't bring it up.  Let's find out."  I agreed, so here we are:  I haven't asked her, or bribed her, or insentivized her in any way to clean her room for about a week now.  The rule I have made up in my own mind is that I will take her stuff from around the house and her clean, lovingly folded laundry, put it in her room, and close the door.  If she can't find something, I'll say "I don't know where that is, you should check your room."  I'll let her know on Thursday that laundry day is Friday, and see what she comes up with.  If she runs out of clean underpants, too bad for her.  I'm keeping my mouth shut, and we'll see what happens.

This morning she asked if she could have a friend over this afternoon. I looked at the state of her room and almost said "No, your room's not clean and you wont have any space to hang out." But instead I said "sure."  Maybe her friend will tell her to not be such a slob, but I wont.  I will make her hang out in there, though; why should she enjoy my tidied living space when her room is a sty? She says she's lost her new bumble bee earrings, I'm sure they're buried in that shithole somewhere.  The cell phone is another matter.  She said "you'll probably kill me if I can't find it!" and I said, "no, you just wont have a cell phone anymore, and that will suck for you."

I don't know who this will be harder for, her or me.  Close the door, close the door, close the door...  How long do you think I can hold out?

Her Menstrual Flower

Before I go any further here, I want you to know that I have permission from my daughter to tell you what I'm about to tell you.  I didn't even ask, she offered, saying "Aren't you gonna write about this in your blog?"  so here I go.

Leila got her period.

It started like this:  A little over a week ago, some girl at school told Leila about a movie called Human Centipede.  I'm not going to describe it, except to warn you that you should only look it up if you have a strong stomach and you think poo is funny, which I do.  Leila does not have a strong stomach, and gets her lack of poo humor from her father, so she came home from school and bawled her eyes out because just the description of the movie was so disgusting and disturbing. She came completely undone.  Then she threw up. Later in the evening, she got over the grossness of the movie by yelling "Bullshit!" in her head whenever she thought about it.  She said it made her feel powerful.  But she still slept in my bed, just in case, and kept on crying.

The next morning, the crying was back, as was the anxious stomach, and the lack of appetite.  She picked at some food, and mostly made it through the day, but she continued to cry - no wait - howl, every afternoon.  I kept her home from school one day because she threw up in the morning and I thought she might be sick, but she wasn't.  The crying went on for 6 days.  She alternated between not knowing why she was crying, and coming up with reasons like: she doesn't want me to ever die; she doesn't ever want to grow up and move out; one day her grandparents will be dead; what if she has an ulcer?  She just about broke my heart.

Then she called me at school on Wednesday and said "I got IT" and I prayed that the crying would be over.

Now, getting away from the crying for a second, I have been planning how to celebrate her first period and usher her into young womanhood (ew) since before she was born.  My mom's words of wisdom to me on that January 23, 1983 were "Shit.  Do you know what to do?  Ok, let me know if you need any help."  and that was it.  No ritual, no nothing, so I always planned to do the opposite.  (Rob brought her a pink rose, and she called it her menstrual flower, hence the title of this post. Then he walked around singing "Girl, you'll be a woman soon" by Neil Diamond)

I took Leila out of school the following day (I know, bad school district citizen) and we started by sleeping in, then I took her to get her first mani pedi (which she was so excited about, but then got nervous because she didn't know what to do and couldn't understand the manicurist, and then she realized its all really boring) then we went to lunch, and then we went shopping.  When the ladies at the store asked her if it was a school holiday, she told them we had taken the day off because she had "just started her menstrual cycle."  And she told everyone who would listen that she had PMS.

Then she cried all the way home, like the pinky-toe piggy.  And I'm not talking about gentle weeping, I'm talking screaming, howling, bawling.  I made up stories about the guy at In 'n' Out Burger who had sold us our milkshakes to make her laugh (Seth, the In 'n' Out chipmunk man with back acne and super long armpit hair) and that would work for a few seconds, and then she would cry that we were being so mean to Seth.  I told her that if, when I died, and they wanted to name a freeway after me, they should name it the Douchebag Memorial Freeway.  She thought this was funny, and then cried some more. She cried for another day or two, and then she felt like herself again.  Phew.

The period itself was wholly uneventful.  It came and went, and we haven't seen it since.  But we did buy, like, 10 pair of underpants, just to be on the safe side.

So that was that.  Years of planning, and it was a success.  Except for the crying.  She's back to normal now, and I lied and told her she shouldn't expect to cry for a week every time she gets her period.  That ought to hold her for a while.  So I guess the next milestone is what? drivers license? first kiss?  I'm ready!!!

(if you would like to read about how Leila learned what a period is, go here.)

Hello Russia!

I had two comments on my last post.  I haven't gotten a comment in ages, so I was moved to look at my reader stats to see if anyone had searched on "Dog butt" or "itchy butt" and found my blog by accident.  That does not seem to be the case.  Nonetheless, I welcome all readers with itchy butted dogs!

The update is that the home cooked diet is not helping, even though I switched to London Broil.  I know it can't make that much of a difference in only a few weeks, but what I did find is that the home cooked diet is a pain in my ass.  Also, I spoke to the vet, and they are really not advocates of home cooked diets except in extreme cases of older dogs who can't tolerate anything else.  So I'm switching to perscription venison.

Who the hell knows, right?  Maybe my dog needs anti anxiety meds and grilled cheese?  That sounds like an excellent meal to me!

In other news, I'm on a diet too, just like my dog, except that I do not have an itchy butt.  Anymore.  I lost 2.6 pounds in the last week.  Only 48 to go!  I'm a little bit obsessed with how many calories are in everything, but I did eat pizza last night and I didn't worry about it.  It felt so good to just eat with my mouth and feel sated, and drink wine.  God I love eating and drinking.  They're my favorite.  I would rather eat and drink than do anything else.  But today I'm back on the wagon.

This post is not funny at all.  Not every one is a winner, I guess, but I did want to say hello to those two commenters, and encourage anyone else out there to comment.  All you russians looking for porn that show up on my stats all the time, say hello!