And you KNOW THIS! | Jive Turkey

Posts filed under ‘And you KNOW THIS!’

Easing Back In

Stay-cation is over, Internet.

Grrrr.

July 12, 2010 at 4:46 pm 34 comments

As I’ve mentioned before, I went to college in Kentucky, and Internet, I love Kentucky. I love their horses and their bourbon and their people and their hot browns (if ever you find yourself in Lexington, proceed immediately to Ramsey’s).

GET IN MY ARTERIES, SIR.

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June 24, 2010 at 1:20 pm 12 comments

G’day

Hello, Internet. I hope you’re having a good week, and spent your Father’s Day doing something fatherly like checking the air in your tires or boning your mom.

OK, point taken, Ziggy, you pathetic little pantsless bastard.

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June 22, 2010 at 12:07 pm 17 comments

Summer of My Compromised Immune System

(Post title inspired by Summer of My German Soldier, a book that 14-year-old Jive Turkey loved and re-re-re-re-read and stained with her overwrought teenage tears, because there is nothing in this world that a teenage girl loves more than a tale of star-crossed lovers, even though in this case the one lover is twelve years old and the other is a grown-ass man who is also a NAZI SOLDIER [but not really! He was forced! Feel free to fantasize about him guilt-free, teen readers!], and I might have scoped out my bedroom closet a time or two to consider where I might stash a hot P.O.W. should one come moseying up the road to my house in 1990s suburban Charleston, WV.)

My opinion of the book is a bit different now (see: twelve-year-old girl, GROWN-ASS MAN, birth of my own daughter who will not be hiding any sexy men in her closet if I can help it).

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June 14, 2010 at 3:47 pm 20 comments

Therapists I Have Known (With Bonus Baby Bitch Slapping!)

NO, I’m not talking about BITCH SLAPPING A BABY, I’m talking about MY BABY BITCH SLAPPING ME. Because she does. And we put on our Serious Faces and correct her in our Stern Voices. And she laughs. Hello, we are screwed.

And hello, I am not sure why these morons could not predict this behavior coming from the fruit of their loins.

Also: You can’t really tell, but I am 7.5 months pregnant here. Please refer me to this photo every time I question Sadie’s behavior.

Apparently, this is normal for her age, but can I tell you how sad it makes me when I request a kiss (a request she only occasionally acknowledges) and move in for the kill and she SLAPS ME AWAY?

Um, excuse me, child, but I swore off booze for FORTY-ONE WEEKS prior to pushing you out the ol’ trap door. I think you can reciprocate with a damn kiss.

Sadie and I have been going it alone this week while Brad is at a Google Analytics conference [read: NYYYERD convention] in Washington, DC. Since we live in an ancient house with tons of baby-gate-defying staircases (seriously, is that why people had so many children back then? Because one of them was always up and dying on the stairs and there needed to be a replacement to make the under-12 shift at the steel mill?), it’s been a challenge keeping her away from any and all bone-breaking scenarios. Things I’ve handed her over the past few days to distract her from throwing herself down the stairs while I do various chores include:

an eyelash curler
the bottom half of a turkey baster
an expired dentist appointment reminder postcard
a hair styling product that I immediately took away from her because it looks like this:

GOOD MORNING.

And then, last night as I was talking to Brad on the phone, she picked a dirty diaper out of the trash* and walked away, cradling it tightly to her side like one of her stuffed toys.

In short: Brad, please come home. Our daughter is hugging used diapers, and I miss you.

(I bet she’d kiss that fucking diaper without slapping it away.)

Anyhoo, thank you for all the comments on my last post. It’s comforting I’m not alone in all my disaster thinking. I’m feeling much better now, thanks to my bitch whore hormones subsiding, and also thanks to some anxiety-reducing techniques I learned in therapy years ago. And that got me to thinking about my time in therapy, and the fine folks who confirmed that I was bat-shit crazy and just needed to settle the fuck down already.

That was the gist of it, as I recall.

I never had a need for therapy until my freshman year of college, when I randomly started having panic attacks (full disclosure: the very first time I had a panic attack, I thought it was alcohol poisoning. It should be noted that I had also discovered keg parties around this time). A friend of mine in the dorm recognized my symptoms as panic, and called her psychiatrist mother during one of my attacks, who then proceeded to talk me through it by having me count down from 100. Aw, I totally hadn’t remembered that until just now. How sweet of her mom. Thanks, Dr. Mom of Random Dorm Friend in 1995! You really did me a solid.

After I knew the problem was in my head and not in my bellyful of Goldschlager, I took my ass to Student Services and signed up for my free therapy hours. That was…remarkably proactive of me, considering I didn’t usually wake up until 11am during this period in my life. At any rate, I was assigned to a therapist who was — to put it kindly — older’n shit. Like, I remember wondering if he’d come out of retirement just to hear some of the crazy talk coming from the mouths of maladjusted college students. He did, however, help me with my panic attacks. He gave me some techniques to stop the chain reaction disaster thinking (and it worked! and still it works!). So, thank you, Dr. Old. You brought me some peace. Even though nowadays you are probably resting in it.

The university’s free counseling had a limit, unfortunately, so after I used up my free sessions the first year, I had to quit. I went back about a year and a half later, though, and this time? HOT DAMN, I hit the therapist lottery. They assigned me to a male grad student, who was — if I may be so bold — hotter’n shit. But alas! Having a hot therapist is NEVER good, Internet. Because working towards improved mental health will take a definite backseat to the following things:

curling your hair and wearing cute outfits to your appointments;
leaving your boyfriend out of your conversations to imply that you are totally available for some casual therapeutic boning;
not paying attention to what the therapist said because you are too busy wondering if he has a girlfriend and/or is gay;
making lame jokes in an attempt to make him laugh;
hiding in the produce section when you see him late one night at the grocery store and you are wearing ratty pajama bottoms.

Suffice it to say, I did not gain much from my free therapy that year (translation: DID NOT EVEN GET BONED). And shortly after my sessions ran out, I started dating Brad, who was and always has been one of the best antidotes to my acute case of Crazy Brain.

After we got married and moved to New Jersey, I started struggling with my anxiety again (in hindsight, I don’t think I ever stopped struggling with it, I think I was just really happily distracted by all the good stuff going on in my life), so I decided to find another therapist. I randomly picked one out of my insurance company’s lackluster online listing, and when I got there for my first appointment? Well, let’s just say she could have MENTIONED ON THE PHONE that she was a fucking CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST.

Although it was kind of fun talking about my fear of dying while sitting in a chair five inches off the ground.

I guess this bitch was desperate for new patients or some shit, because she assured me that while she wastechnically a child psychologist, she was totally qualified (and more than happy!) to help me out. She seemed nice enough, so whatever. I scheduled a second appointment directly with her, since her very small office was kind of a one-woman-show operation.

I showed up right on time for my second appointment, and…hm. That’s weird. The door is locked. Let me give her a call. Huh. I can hear the phone ringing in there, but no one is picking up. I guess I’ll wait around for 30 fucking minutes. Really? A no-show? FUCK A BUNCH OF THIS SHIT.

After getting stood up by my fucking THERAPIST, for Christ’s sake, Dr. Flakes-a-lot called me and apologized over and over again for the mistake. Although I had been plenty pissed at the time, I overlooked it and we rescheduled for another day.

Another day on which — ONCE AGAIN — she didn’t show up.

I mean, really, lady? REALLY? Thank goodness I wasn’t coming to you for help with abandonment issues. In other news: BUY A FUCKING PLANNER.

I remember her leaving a few suuuuper apologetic messages on my voicemail, but there was no forgive and forget this time. No one dicks this crazy lady over multiple times without first being a blood relative or boyfriend!

I found a replacement therapist in beautiful, scenic downtown New Brunswick, NJ who promised to be a more reliable source of de-crazying. At my first appointment, he had me all figured out, and by the end of the hour he’d mapped out an entire strategy to have me functioning anxiety-free by the end of six months. I remember being a little unnerved by him, mostly because he totally saw through all my shit, and laid it all out for me in the manner of LOOK, if you want to get better, you have to do X, Y, and Z. Don’t like it? Tough shit. I believe the words “exposure therapy” were uttered. I was scared, but mostly excited. This was going to be anxiety boot camp, motherfuckers! I headed back out to the reception desk to schedule my second appointment, which would be at 11:00 in the morning on September 11, 2001.

Sooooooooo.

By around 10:00 on that particular morning, it became evident that I would not be making my appointment, seeing as how the fucking world was ending about 60 miles away. I remember calling to cancel, and Internet. One cannot describe the chaos that was going down at that reception desk. Not to make light of a national tragedy and/or the people with already shaky grips on their own respective sanities, but OH MY LORD when the receptionist picked up the phone, all I heard was shouting and crying and phones ringing off the hook, and I barely got the words, “I won’t be making it to my appointment this morning” out of my mouth before the woman yelled “FINE!” and slammed down the phone.

Yikes.

The end of that week was when we moved to New York City (GOOD TIMING: WE HAZ IT) and HOO BOY there is no better immersion therapy for panic disorders and anxiety than plopping your ass right in the middle of a massive metropolis a few days post-major scale disaster. After about a year or so having panic attacks on the subway (NOT FUN) and on random street corners, they just…sort of stopped. Not completely, of course, but with each passing year since then, the panic attacks got less and less frequent, and now I really don’t have them at all. Well, let’s put it this way: I’m usually able to stop things before they escalate that far. And while I still struggle with anxiety from time to time, it’s so much better than it used to be. And I’m endlessly thankful for that.

And who needs to pay a therapist when you have a baby who can bitch slap you sane at any given moment?

Am I going to have to lay it down?

*It should be noted that this was only a pee diaper, discarded in the soon-to-be-emptied trash before bathtime, lest you think we’re filthy people who don’t even own a proper diaper pail. We do, in fact, own a Diaper Genie, although nowadays we can only use it for the barely-smell-able pee diapers. Anytime m’lady drops a deuce, that diaper has to be escorted off the premises immediately, preferably in a securely sealed biohazard container. I am only exaggerating a little.

Hazmat suit optional, but recommended.

A HUGE THANK YOU to kdiddy for recovering this ENTIRE FUCKING POST after whore WordPress lost it. I think this was the universe’s way of testing my self-proclaimed cured mental health issues.

Well played, universe.

May 20, 2010 at 1:32 pm 31 comments

I Hate These Things, and I Hate Their Ass Faces!

I have a feeling I’ve used a similar title for a post before (and am far too lazy to check), but at least this movie is not an Adam Sandler movie. And hey, know who doesn’t like Adam Sandler movies? This girl. Know how I knew that? This post. The idea for which I’m totally stealing today, because I am exhausted after a weekend participating in this event (and hosting the grandparents whose babysitting services were needed so that Brad and I could participate together).

And then when we were out for breakfast yesterday morning, a dude at the next table PEED HIS PANTS but did not let that stop him from continually visiting the breakfast buffet, thereby walking past our table roughly 53 times and effectively ruining our appetites, so I think you’ll understand when I say my brain needs a NAP, yo.

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March 29, 2010 at 1:09 pm 23 comments

And The Oscar Goes To…

Despite not having seen, oh, ANY of the Best Picture nominees, I watched the Academy Awards last Sunday night. I never really make hard and fast plans to watch, but every year we usually end up recording it on the Tivo and then tuning in about an hour into the broadcast so we can fast-forward through the awards for sound mixing and the awkward “We-are-cutting-your-speech-off-with-flowy-violin-music” moments.

Also skipped: speeches sure to annoy the fuck out of me.

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March 12, 2010 at 5:42 pm 12 comments

Which Old Witch?

First, Internet, let me say that I was totally overwhelmed (in a good way) by your responses to my last post. I think/hope I responded to all of your comments, because I appreciate each and every last one. You really helped me find some closure on the whole career issue, and I have a feeling that the next time my work-related ennui emerges, I will be able to handily resist the urge to staple myself to my cubicle wall in a display of very beige self-flagellation.