On Obamarama.

Oh, sweet Barack, my favorite candidate that I've ever had. You will be so close in Grand Rapids, yet I stay here. I hear that you will fill Van Andel arena, anyway, without me.

So, in your honor:

Oh, Gwyneth.

First of all, I have never liked girls name Gwyneth. Second, now I know I was merely being clairvoyant about your "admission" that you had postpartum depression.

From msnbc.com (and various other sites on the tubes):

“You know, I had postnatal depression after Moses,” the “Shakespeare in Love” actress confessed. “I didn’t know I had it until after it was over. I just didn’t know what was wrong with me.

-snip-

I felt really out of my body. I felt really disconnected. I felt really down. I felt pessimistic.”

The actress is certain she knows the source of the problem. Unlike her first pregnancy with daughter Apple, Gwyneth abandoned her prenatal routines, such as acupuncture and massage.

Okay, let me unclench my teeth and unpack this. As a member of the 10 to 20 percent of women who get postpartum depression, let me fill you in on some things.

First of all, I most definitely knew that I had postpartum depression while I was in it. You know how? I went mildly psychotic. I thought people were going to steal my babies. I kept forgetting there were two of them--seriously. I was terrified that I was going to hurt them--not nervous that I was going to drop them while sleep-addled, mind you, but that I was going to snap and break one of their legs in a fit of uncontrollable rage. I thought that my husband would be far better off without me, and that he would be so much better as a dad if I weren't here to mess it up all the time. Those are not symptoms of "feeling really down," those are symptoms of a mental illness. Which is what postpartum depression is, and why they medicate you for it with real drugs prescribed by a physician.

Disconnected doesn't even begin to cover it. Gwyneth, darling, I was kicked out of the will at 18, mugged at gunpoint at 20, and had a near-death experience due to massive pneumonia, a collapsed lung, full-body pleuresy, and a freakin' heart attack at 30. And you want to know what finally got me to a psychiatrist to get medicated? Postpartum depression.

So you may be an easy target, with your nannies and your macrobiotic diet and your regular yoga and your accupuncture and massage, but let me tell you this: Do not, under any circumstances, use this thing that almost destroyed me, this disease that most certainly is NOT a character flaw, as something you "think" you had in order to connect with a larger audience to sell more copies of that damned fashion magazine you're all airbrushed to hell on the cover of. Never, ever again. Because people like you are the reason that it took me six weeks of delusions of hurting my daughter, forgetting my son existed, and beating myself up because I was recovering from major surgery and having a hard time sustaining a milk supply for the 10 hours of breastfeeding I was doing a day before I went to the doctor. Oh, and being hard on myself for not thinking it was blissfully, joyfully FUN.

Even after I went to the doctor, filled my prescription, and went home I still heard this little voice in the back of my brain, a voice that sounds strangely like yours, telling me that I just couldn't hack it. And you bet I cried in bitter failure while I took those pills--at first. Now, seven months later, they are almost the best things that ever happened to me, and I feel more alive and downright chipper than I have in a long, long time. I actually enjoy my babies and am finding motherhood more of a happy tussle than an epic struggle.

But don't think that isn't too chipper to want to kick your skinny white ass until you stop yapping about things you don't understand.

What Six Months Can Do

You know, every once in a while you have to take a peek at where you've been in order to get a grasp of where you're going.

This is me when I found out I was having twins in 2006. I swear, I have never been that happy in my life. This is made better when you know that in this picture I've been throwing up multiple times a day for over a month.

But, as I told my family and friends in an email later that day, I was not a slacker: I was an overachiever. Anyone related to me with a uterus should take note that even when you're only three months out of the hospital and feel like you are going to keel over any day now, your uterus will still overachieve. Be warned.

Fast forward six months. This is the end of June, people. And yes, that's me in the middle. THIS IS NOT EVEN THE MOST PREGNANT I GOT, I still had another month to go.

So I went from that cute girl in the above picture, pointing to a belly that looks like she ate too much mac and cheese, to the enormous thing you see at left. Note how my lovely husband looks in awe at my ginormity. And my grandfather, at right, is looking like this is completely normal. What can I say, we're Catholic--breeding is second nature to us, even when unplanned and multiple in nature.

Ah, yes, finally. A month later, here are the new reasons that I'm alive. Boy Monkey is at left, trying to escape the multiple blankets his father has swaddled him in, you know, in July. Girl Monkey is at right, expressing with her face how incredibly serious this sleeping thing is.

So yeah, there's no real purpose to this post aside for me to wax all nostalgic-like about the craziest six months of my life. Oh, and maybe show some Monkey Pictures that you all haven't seen before.

Have a good day, people. I can smell spring on the wind, and it can't come soon enough.

Black History Month

I just published an article about Malcolm X on another site. Please read. I swear I'm not insufferable while discussing race relations on a liberal website.

Thanks,
Main Monkey

A promise to a Mensch

The very kind, very nice, most favoritest mensch--although her mother is a favorite mensch, too--and I had a lovely discussion Tuesday night, about which she wrote this post. So I am returning the favor and sharing these delightful photos from my oh-so-traumatic junior high school yearbooks.

You bet your sweet rear end this means I've reached certain therapy goals.

First, some context. You know how some kids just sail through junior high with little or no psychological damage aside from the agony of that pimple they got on the night of the dance? I was not one of those people. Northeast Junior High in 1989-1991 was a battlefield for me, and I undoubtedly lost. Most of the scars were healed in high school and college, but don't we all carry a little bit of that seventh grader inside of us?

So, in the spirit of openness, friendship, and the Fightin' Northeast Vikings, here we go:

This is my seventh grade picture. Several sources have described it as one of the worst school pictures they have ever seen. Behold the frizzy hair that my mother, bless her soul, thought a perm could take the natural curl out of. Behold the glasses' pre-spherical lenses that distort the size of my eyes to an alarming degree only to emphasize my natural blindness. You can even barely make out the metal braces so large that my poor teeth were entirely obscured due to their heavy bulk.

Ah, but this is only the beginning:


This is my seventh grade gymnastics team picture. (I have no idea how the x got on my foot, but there most certainly was not an x there in real life. The tattoos didn't come until seven years later. Oh, and none of them are on my foot.)

Please note again the gleam of the braces. Also, note the complete and utter lack of, um, womanly virtues in the chestal region. And apparently it wasn't degrading enough to have to change out of a swimsuit in a locker room after my required swim class--why, God, why did they require swim classes in this oh-so-awkward year?--but I made the Conscious Choice to parade around in a leotard in front of strangers--to music! My severe awkwardness must have made me mentally ill.

Also, note the bangs: Half curled up, half curled down. Aw, yeah.

Finally, in the spirit of "if I wanted to expose so much of my gangliness why didn't I join the volleyball team with those tiny little shorts," I give you the 8th grade tennis picture. There are new glasses, but they're still horrible. There's a new hairstyle, but the bangs are twice as high. And the leotard may be gone, but it's been replaced by a tennis skirt.

Sigh. If only we could go back to our 13-year-old selves, if only to give hair advice. And to tell ourselves that we really were kind of pretty, even if those jock guys called you an ugly slut on the way home from school every day.

So, Mensch, this trauma's for you. I hope you've enjoyed it. And now I hope you realize that when I was puking pregnant, my hair was falling out, and I was the color of a cigarette ash without the actual cigarettes, I still was hotter than I was in 7th grade.

Proper equipment and geneology

Lansing got a lot of snow last night. Lansing also has a strict 24-hour snow removal rule. Although my dear husband was too tired to shovel last night, he did somehow have enough energy to get in an "animated discussion" with me about geneology, which pretty much ended with me saying something along the lines of "geneology is dumb!" and huffing off to sleep in the guest room without another word.

Lo and behold, when I awoke this morning, yon driveway and sidewalk were still covered with the white stuff. Being the cheery lass that I am, and always feeling up to a winter-related challege, I suited on up in the proper equipment.

See? I'm all happy and ready to go: ski jacket, dorky hat, teeth that I really should have used the retainer as directed on. What you can't see are the well-worn adventure boots, Smartwool socks, and thermal gloves. I'm even wearing my breathable rain pants from Oregon, which provides unimpeachable evidence that my butt is the same size as it used to be--it's the pants that are getting smaller. All together, this weather-readiness is what an ex not-so-lovingly called the "lesbian geologist look." (Note: I have nothing against lesbians or geologists. He did, but I do not.) I felt vital, alive, and full of vim and vigor.

I went out to engage in some heart-pumping snow removal, and managed to get this far before needing a break:
See? There's a path leading from the front door to all the way down to the street. (Fun Ghetto Fact: The brown van parked out there has absolutely zero exhaust system: no muffler, no pipe, no nothin'. In other words, it lacks proper equipment.)


Keep in mind that all of that was done with what I did not realize was this crappy of a shovel before I got suited up:
Yes, that weird edge does make shovelling much harder, thank you for asking. But I am a vital, hale and healthy young woman, and I attack whatever challenges arise with a vigorous mind and body. Even the family's need to get a new shovel does not deter me from my snow-removal duties.

I needed a rest at this point, no matter how hale I was feeling, and went inside to get a drink of water. At this point, I heard the Junior Monkeys over the monitor making their Happy Wakeup Time Noises. I went up to fetch them and smelled perhaps the most noxious odor I have ever caught a whiff of coming out of my son's pants. I picked him up, took him to the changing table, and proceeded to open the most impressive poop package I have ever seen. (I would have taken pictures, but the smell would have melted my camera.) Not only was it impressive upon opening, but it became even more impressive as The Boy spread The Contents all over his plastic pants, his brand-new outfit, the changing table, the wall, and even Mommy's sweatshirt. With, I might add, his feet.

Over the next 20 minutes I was able to disinfect the table, the son, and even myself, and brought both the Junior Monkeys downstairs. Apparently, the glare from the snow was frying my neurons, because I thought to myself, "Self? Why don't you take the Junior Monkeys outside with you? That way you can finish shovelling and they can get some much-needed fresh air!" I looked down at the adorable Monkeys, who cooed and babbled while rolling around and grabbing their feet.

Fifteen minutes later, there was no more cooing and babbling, but rather only this:

See? Not only is The Boy desperately unhappy with the Infant Torture Device (aka "Snowsuit") that I had to administer, but The Girl has apparently lost all will to live and sits there apathetically in her cute pink ears.

Yes, I eventually did get the walk, driveway, and stairs cleared, and no Junior Monkeys were harmed in the process. But it did take me over two hours to finish when you count the time spent on poop removal and baby torturing.

Why, do you ask, am I telling you all of this? And publishing it on the Intertubes, no less? Let all of you husbands and boyfriends be warned: Because my husband argued with me about geneology, I slept in another room last night and therefore he did not wake up in time to shovel the walk. Since I had to shovel the walk with a crappy shovel, I was not around to remove my son's biohazard of a diaper at the point of explosion, therefore allowing the only somewhat contained substance to find its way into nooks and crannies within the diaper that it ordinarily would not find. Had the biohazard not found all the diaper's little nooks and crannies, the spreading of said biohazard all over creation upon the opening of the diaper may not have happened. Also, because the job was taking so long due to the damaged shovel, I had to take my children outside with me. In order to take them outside in cold weather, they should be dressed for it, which caused two happy babies to turn into what you see pictured above.

In short, if my dear husband hadn't insisted upon arguing about geneology with me last night, even if it was "for the children," I wouldn't have had to clear the walk with a broken shovel or get covered in poop, and he wouldn't have enraged his son or made his daughter lose the will to live. The least he can do is apologize--and get us a new shovel.

Ah, nostalgia.

I'm sitting here trying to do anything aside from filling out my bankruptcy paperwork.

Funny, never thought those particular words would ever be typed by yours truly. I promise that I'll be back next week with the usual snark and candor. Until then, allow me to wallow in a bit of nostalgia and go back to the halcyon early days of Monkeys Gather Publishing, aka 2003. You know, back when I wasn't bankrupt and actually thought that I might someday be a novelist.

What is Monkeys Gather Publishing?

One could ask oneself why the world would need another internet publishing house. A Google search turned up almost 500,000 of them in under a second. So why on earth did someone create another one?

It’s simple, really. Most of them are downright awful. The rest of them are pretentious. And if you really want to do something right, you have to do it yourself.

Monkeys Gather Publishing is a loose association of writers who are committed to the idea of free publication of quality work. This work includes short fiction, essays, and poetry.

Monkeys Gather is the brainchild of Joan Bolander, who was frustrated by her inability to get her work published by conventional means. That, and she has an understandable laziness about sending her babies out to the slaughter. Needless to say, she is somewhat neurotic, being raised Catholic and all, and this project lessens her guilt about not being able to write 24 hours a day. It’s bad enough that she was supposed to win the Pulitzer by 23, and the Nobel by 35. At least there’s still is time for the Nobel.

Thus, while she spends her time typing horrible amounts of code, tending bar at various awful restaurants in the Portland, Oregon, area, and attending business classes at a horrendous community college, she at least can keep one eye on the fact that every time she goes into a bookstore, she creates a place on the shelf for her opus. Who knows, someday, it will actually be on that shelf, and someone will actually read it.

Crap, now I just want to go back to Portland. Oh well, I still have four more years to go for the Nobel, although now it will probably be for Raising Multiples rather than Achievement in Literature. And it's nice to know that I still don't want to slaughter my babies, although now they're ACTUAL babies, not horribly punctuated juvenile prose. Sigh.