No Im not Pregnant yet

Happy Friday Readers! I'm happy to report this post is coming to you from the comfort of our new Vera Wang mattress. The husband caved and it was delivered last night. So thank you to my loving husband who finally realized that listening to me bitch about how uncomfortable I am is in fact more painful then dropping some Gs on something with a 20 year warranty. Booya. **Side Note: For those of you out there thinking that because I had to wait for my husband's permission to purchase a new mattress, that we must be in some kind of 1940s style, Suzie Homemaker marriage situation, I'll have you know, he only slaps me when I get out of hand. No but really, he is an engineer. I am a social worker. Whose bank account has more zeros in it? Exactly. So to all my feminist friends out there, I love you, but when it comes to the dolla dolla bills, I'll leave it up to my financially successful husband so I can spend my meager earnings on White Castle and roller skates.

Lets dive in.

I will be turning 27 this December. I was married this past January 22. I have been with my husband for approximately 5 years. These numbers, although seemingly unrelated, are actually the players in a much larger, more terrifying equation entitled...

"Why aren't you pregnant yet?"

Since the day we announced our engagement some 2 1/2 years ago, my Mother-in-Law has been pestering me and harassing me about giving her grandchildren. Don't get me wrong. My MIL is a very kind, loving woman. She has been very good to me, and I love her a lot. Its just that, when it comes to grandchildren, she has no mercy. She uses whatever manipulative devices she can to make me feel like the fact that I haven't yet produced offspring is a testament to the fact that I'm probably suffering from a brain parasite or some form of mild, but ever growing TBI. And, being that I was raised Catholic for the first 18 years of my life, I have immense guilt over the fact that I'm already failing as a daughter-in-law after only 8 months in the game.

Lets give some examples shall we? We shall. 1) I was told that I needed to conceive a child on our wedding night 2) I am sent weekly email reminders with phrases such as "hopefully by this time next year it will be a picture of Maria & baby Quinn" or "I hope that new mattress is put to use in making me a grand baby"......for real. 3) While waiting for a movie to begin one afternoon, one of those ETrade commercials with the talking babies came on. I remarked: "haha I love these commercials, baby are so cute", to which she leaned over and replied: "Did I hear that right? Maria said she likes babies?" FML 4) Our wedding gift was a rocking chair made by the Amish....that cost 5 grand. It is beautiful. It really is. But is there really any better way to tell someone "GIVE ME FUCKING GRANDCHILDREN RIGHT NOW!!!" then purchasing them a chair that costs more than a car? If there is, I'd like to know.

None of this would be so terrible if it weren't for the fact that both my husband & I have, on numerous occasions, explained that we are waiting a few years to have kids, and how we want to hang out just the two of us and enjoy being married before we start popping out creatures whose existence takes over your entire being for at least 20 years. We have both said this, nicely, and not so nicely around 15 times. But none of that seems to matter. In fact, only yesterday, I responded to an email inquiry about grandchildren by stating the following, and I quote: "Don't worry MIL!!! I promise you will get grandchildren. We are just waiting a little while longer to make sure we are emotionally and financially ready. Plus we want to hang out just the two of us and Bear(our dog) for a while longer. But I promise you, unless either of us have some kind of fertility issues, you will get grandchildren. I want 3. Jimmy wants 2. We will see who wins"

Now I thought this was very well played. I acknowledged her feelings, explained the logical reasons as to why we are waiting, and even gave her that little extra sparkle by showing her that her barren daughter-in-law is in fact the one who wants more children than her son. This is the response I got: "Well don't wait too long. By your age I already had Jimmy" F.M.L F.M.L F.M.L.
To which my response was to call my husband and yell, "you need to have a talk with your mom, because I'm going fucking insane over here" He agreed that it was getting past the point of just normal grandmother-to-be inquiry and turning into full blown harassment.

In my desperation, I texted--is it texted? that always looks wrong--my husband's younger brother the following message: "Please get a random girl pregnant. It will get me off the hook with your mom. She says something every day about me having a baby. I am letting her down, so please for my sake, become a father. Thank you." His response: "Oh god..."

Now you know the level of my desperation. I have to beg a 23 year old to impregnate a random bar floozie. Gahh.

What it comes down to is this: I'm still too selfish at this point in my life to want to dedicate my entire waking life to someone other than myself. I'm from the school of thought that says having a child means giving that little thing 110% of your time & energy. So that's how I know I'm not ready. I love being able to wake up at 8am on Saturday and read for 3 hours while my husband plays video games, and then eventually we decide to take the dog to the dog park and pick up some PaPa Murphy's on the way home, and then come home and sit on the couch or on the deck and do absolutely nothing for the entire day. That shit is golden. That is how I unwind after a stressful work week. I love my new found sport of Roller Derby, and I'm pretty sure getting the shit knocked out of you 5 times a practice wouldn't be good for a fetus.

Does this mean I never want to have kids? No way. I actually cant wait to produce some really short, sass mouthed, hairy little buggers and teach them all about music and books and the class system and how to cut a dog's toenails. But I don't want to do that just right this second. Give me a few years. It will happen. In the meantime, I will continue to drink White Russians for lunch and skate around an oval taped to a concrete floor, and enjoy the company of just my husband and dog. Babies can wait. I don't think the world is quite ready for whatever crazy ass offspring my husband and I most surely will produce anyways.

Have a non-baby filled weekend people.
Hugs & Kisses.
~Maria

A 30 second commentary on HydroGel

Morning Peeps. Hope you are excited its almost the weekend. Only a few more hours to go and then you can do whatever the crap you want. So hang in there! Also, this is going to be a short one. Because I have shit to do today. But it doesn't mean I love you less. And to be completely honest, I had a huge one I started writing about Holden Caufield, but in order to make it flow properly I would have had to put in like a 2-3 more hours worth of work, and I didnt feel up to the challenge. I told you I was lazy. Sloth at its finest. I would rather think about what Im going to go get for dinner tonight than do any more actual work, so this is what you get today. Holla.

There is this commercial that has been driving me f-ing insane every time it happens to pop up in between episodes of Futurama or Jersey Shore---I have regressed in my development and have been watching mainly cartoons and MTV reality shows for the past week. Such is life. Anyways, Schick came out with this line of commercials advertising their new HydroGel razors with the tag line "Its like a blast of Hydration to your face!" which, is a lame tag line in itself, but that's not what gets my goat--which incidentally is a statement, I would like to know the origin of. Alright so in these commercials, they show a guy getting hit in the head with a soccer ball, or a chick taking off her shirt sexily and throwing it at this dude's face, or a guy's towel turning into water when he goes to use it. Fine. I'm ok with those things. I get your point Schick. Using your new razor would be like if everything that ever had the possibility of hitting my face turned into water. Sounds refreshing. But have you ever noticed the one scene that doesn't seem quiet appropriate in these commercials? Two men of possible Asian descent are fighting Kendo style with these long ass sticks. And one dude takes his stick, and with all his might, mind you, slams it against the back of the other dude's head. Thankfully the stick turned into a blast of hydration upon impact, but really Schick, what the fuck?? If that stick hadn't turned into water, that dude would be dead. Like there would be a huge stick shaped dent in the back of his brain and he would no longer be breathing. He would be on the floor, bleeding uncontrollably. Brain matter would be visible. All of the other people in the Kendo class would be in shock. The police would have to be called. How is this making me want to purchase your razor Shick? All the other events in these commercials show situations where, had the object not turned into water, the person might have been hurt, but wouldn't be suffering from traumatic brain injury. It gives me the chills every time I see it. So get your shit together Schick. I don't like being traumatized by ads for men's grooming products when I'm trying to relax after a 10 hour work day. Fuck.

The end. Have a stellar weekend.

Goose Feathers are for Communists

Good Morning Readers! What do you know, it's 7:52 and I am functioning on a high enough level to get this thing out to you before noon. Hooray, and thank you for your patience over the last 5 or so posts.

I am currently sitting on a mattress that has more hills and valleys in it than the entire state of Minnesota. It is shaped like a W, and I am literally 6 inches lower than my husband when we sleep. Its really comfortable. If the definition of comfortable was horrible and the ability to instill rage in a person. Being that its only 6 years old and that my husband is cheap when it comes to things we actually need, he bought a 4 inch pillow top mattress pad thing off Overstock.com to make up for the hills and valleys....which sounds really sweet, but if you lay on it for more than 5 minutes, feels like its not even there since apparently goose feathers, can not, in fact, support the weight of a human body for a sustained amount of time. Who knew? Not me. So to make up for the misshapen-ness AND the anti-functioning pillow top, my husband found some ripped foam thingy that one of our friends left in our garage when he moved out of state to add to the disaster that we have been sleeping on for the last 6 years. Presumably this foam thingy worked well once upon a time, but being that it was sitting on the floor of our garage for a good year before Jimmy thought to use it, its integrity is beyond questionable. If we don't have bedbugs, or the clap from this thing, it will be a miracle. So why do two reasonably successful mid twenty somethings without kids not have a decent mattress? I shall tell you why.

Back in 2004, my mother, rest her soul, called me up and told me she had found a Queen sized mattress for me at a discount mattress outlet in Columbia Heights. That sentence right there should have been enough for me to politely decline, but being that I had been sleeping on the same Twin sized bed that I have had since I was 3, I wasn't about to turn up my nose at something from a place with the word discount in it. Plus, all my roommates at the time had these huge beds that could fit like 5 people in them, and when people came and looked in my room it looked like it was being rented out by a 7 year old. Because really, they don't make Twin sized sheets that are cool or grown up looking. They just don't. Need less to say, I purchased this discounted beast, and this is the bed that I met my husband in. Literally. So we have never known anything else together as a couple. And because of this, Jimmy believes that if we have been sleeping on it ok for this long, we might as well sleep on it for another 20!! Settle down ladies, he's all mine.

I finally convinced him to go look at mattresses a few weekends ago after waking up to a jacked up right shoulder. I'm not a doctor, but I think that sleeping at a 45 degree angle with all your weight on one shoulder for 5 consecutive hours at a time isn't good for it. So we go to HOM furniture, which incidentally has always pissed me off, because: Removing the last letter of a word doesn't make your place of business unique or more exciting. Neither does adding a few letters to the end. "No sir, I'm not impressed by your Ice Cream Shoppe. Kindly let me through so I can make my way over to DQ for a non-pretentious Red Dilly Bar" Once inside HOMe, I immediately become anxious. Going into any place where high pressure salesmen are waiting to pounce and watch your every move is about as fun for me as getting my fingernails pulled off. I hate it. Completely. Because I always feel obligated to purchase something. I know its stupid and that I'm exactly the customer that they are looking for, so you don't have to tell me that. I already know it. But I still cant help feeling immense amounts of guilt. Thank you 12 years of Catholic Schooling.

What it comes down to, is that I don't like lying to these people. "Oh sure, we'll come back next Saturday...what time do you work again?" I hate it. I know that some of them are assholes just looking to make a commission, but my soul doesn't allow for me to make promises to a random stranger that we both know I'm not going to keep. It makes me want to throw up. Jimmy , on the other hand could give two shits what anyone thinks of him. Its a big part of why I like him--awww tear. So he brazenly walks through the aisles of beds, sometimes flinging himself onto one just to get a reaction out of the 60 year old salesman who has been creepily following us for the last 10 minutes. To sum up, we spend 2 hours there lying on and testing out beds. We decided on two, and Jimmy makes us go back and forth between the two at least 15 times. By this point, the man has decided to wait for us on a mattress in between the 2 we are running back and forth from and looks like he is questioning why he decided to come out of retirement. Aside from the anxiety, I am also starting to get excited that we are actually going through with this. We are getting a new mattress!!! No more praying for an out of town wedding with the sole purpose of wanting to sleep on a California King at the Holiday Inn--which by the way, are amazing. They are like 30 feet across. An entire family of Refuges could sleep comfortably in one of those puppies. So I'm getting excited, and the excitement is starting to overpower the nerves, because I think, wow we are actually going to come back next weekend and do the damn thing. In one weekend, I will be sleeping on a cloud and will never have to worry about waking up looking like a circus contortionist again.

But then it happens: By some freak coincidence, I happen to catch the look in Jimmy's eye at the exact moment he decides we aren't actually in fact buying a new mattress from this place, and that these last 2 hours have been a waste of every one's time. I then watch him ask what time the man works next weekend and take his business card. As we walk down the 17 flights of stairs to the bottom level of HOMe, each step brings me a little further away from a restful nights sleep, and as I reach the step that takes the mattress I fell in love with out of my line of sight for good, I shed a single tear. I sit down in the car dejected, as my husband cranks up the radio and says "I was planning on just ordering one off of Overstock the entire time"

Fin.

Happy Friday. Have a super sexy fun time weekend.

An Argument in the Defense of Terrible Music

Happy Friday and many blessings to you on this lovely morning....I mean afternoon. I went and drank a Martini for lunch in Uptown with friends, so you're getting this late. I'm editing tipsy so watch out world. Shit could get crazy.

Alright so I listen to lots and lots of different types of music. And as the dude who did my tattoo last weekend pointed out to me, the older you get, the busier you become and the more likely you are to stop trying to find all the underground and indie and super secret type bands that you used to listen to back in your youth. I can agree with this, as I think it applies pretty well to a majority of people. For me personally, I have never been one to seek out music that is not mainstream simply for the fact that I'm too lazy to do the research. If its not being played on the radio, or if its not in a movie soundtrack, or if its not being prostituted by Apple for an IPod Nano commercial, I probably haven't heard it. Any underground or Indie bands I like, have been brought to my attention courtesy of friends and acquaintances. So thanks to those of you who either hate mainstream radio, or want everyone to think you hate mainstream radio because it makes you seem hardcore. Either way, your dislike of the All American Top 40 has exposed me to some pretty kick ass bands. I am in your debt.

What inspired me to write this post is the all encompassing recent success of a virtually talentless blond chick named Ke$ha. That's not a typo. Her name has a money symbol in it. Be jealous. Or be angry. Either way. Ke$ha came on the scene in late 2009, with her single Tik Tok. And by all respectable standards, she is terrible. She doesn't actually sing in her songs, but rather does this odd rap/talk/hum thing that ends up making her sound like she is about 3/4 into a bottle of Bacardi O. And the first time I heard Tik Tok, I hated it. My brain couldn't process what the hell it was hearing. I distinctly remember looking at my husband and saying "What the fuck is this shit? Did she really just say 'Wake up in the morning feeling like PDiddy' ?" But........after hearing it a few more times.......it started to grow......on......me. It even hurts to type it. But its true. I found myself getting excited after jumping in the car on my way home from a long day at work if I turned on my radio and heard ..."pedicure on my toes toes". I'd crank that shit up and find myself rap/talk/humming along. How can this be??? I know music. I know this sucks. I know its awful and that she is talentless and that there are hundreds of other musicians out there with actual talent just waiting and hoping to be discovered, and here I am supporting someone who doesn't brush her hair and happened to be lucky enough to fall into a record deal. But it's like crack, and I can not get enough.

She has released several more singles, all of which have followed the same pattern for me. I hate it, I hear it again, I don't completely hate it, I hear it again, I kind of like it, I hear it again, I actually like it, I hear it again, I fucking love this, this is my jammmmm!!!!!! Its a vicious cycle. And it hurts all the more because deep down I know its awful & what a waste of space she is.

Take her most recent single "Take if Off" This honest to god has got to be one of the most trite, unoriginal, auto tuned pieces of shit music to ever be recorded. And the first time I heard it, you guessed it, I really hated it. I mean, the premise of the song is based on that chant you used to say when you were kids "There's a place in France where the naked ladies dance" You know what I'm talking about. I remember even as a 3rd grader I didn't like that rhyme because it seemed so stupid. Well, Ke$ha took that stupid childhood chant and turned it into and even stupider song for big kids. And to my dismay, I have found myself hoping to hear this song when I get into my car. I still hate the rhymey-ness of it. I do. But every time I hear it, I find myself thinking, hmmmm. This hole in the wall shes talking about sounds kind of sweet.....I like glitter on the floor.....I like seeing hot people take off their clothes.....freaks are usually pretty fun. I want to go to this place. Wherever it is. Take me with you money-symbol-in-your-name girl. I want to party with these freaks you speak of. The guilt I feel afterward is palpable. I usually hang my head in shame and go home and sit under the hot water in the shower for 45 minutes.

So. We have established that Ke$ha is in fact awful. We have also established that I am attracted to her horribleness and am unable to fight the urge to listen to this garbage. And based on the title of this post you are probably waiting for the punchline, for my inevitable defense of my bad behavior. Well, its not coming. I lied. I have no good excuse as to why I like this shit. I also like Justin Beiber, and old school Brittany Spears, and 3OH!3 and I fucking love the Pussy Cat Dolls. I'm not ashamed to admit it anymore. I finally came out of the closet. I know liking pop music isn't cool. It isn't bad ass. Its lame. And if you aren't ok with that, you can go to hell. Because I just wanna dance. And most of the time obscure, random, weird bands just don't do it for me when I want to get my swerve on.

So I say to you: today, or this weekend, if you are in your car, or in a club, or in line at the grocery store, or walking around Lake Calhoun, and you happen to hear some terrible, contrite piece of garbage and you find yourself starting to tap your foot in time to the beat, do not be ashamed. You raise your head high and proudly do your thang.

I will leave you with this amazingly inspirational quotation from one of my favorite Ke$ha songs:

" I don't really care where you live at

Just turn around boy let me hit that
Don't be a little bitch with your chit chat
Just show me where your dicks at"

Now if that isn't brilliant songwriting, I don't know what is. Have a good weekend lovelies.