‘You’re Doing Great!’ Or Why My Vagina May be Subpar

Posted on March 21, 2013 by

Recently, I’ve seen 2 different television shows in which a character has a baby. I’m glad to say in both instances the writers and actors did a decent job of portraying it as the harrowing experience it is. I noticed something though about the doctors/nurses in the shows and it actually coordinated with my experience. The always say to the woman, ‘You’re doing great’.

Did that happen to you guys? I remember it being said to me multiple times. ‘Okay Rama, you’re doing great. We just need you to {insert painful thing here}.’ It was totally different staff and different hospitals with Ham and Cheese, but it happened for me both places.

I think they’re lying. I think they tell everyone that they’re doing great. What are they supposed to say if you aren’t actually doing great? ‘Okay Ms. Smith, your vagina is really worthless – so you’re gonna have to work a little harder here. And don’t get me started on your uterus. The baby just used semaphore to tell me how much he wants to escape from that useless pile of meat. Oh. And he says don’t name him Hashtag.’

I hear stories about women that can just BLAM! shoot that kid right out. That’s SO not how my births went. In the plus column (or minus….hmmmm…), I had them the typical way. The correct way to state that would be to say a ‘normal vaginal birth’. No C-sections – which I understand just straight up suck rocks. So – normal vaginal birth meant for me partially stoned (Hooray for Stadol*!), epidural anesthesia, kid head down and an ungodly number of hours of pushing to get the little shits out of me. OUT!!!! OUT!!!!!!!

During Cheese’s birth I was so fucking tired they had to wake me up to push. Yes. Every 30 seconds or so they had to wake me up because I could actually fall completely asleep in about 5 seconds and sleep for 25 seconds until I was unceremoniously reminded that my kid was trying to escape my body. Despite that, the whole time they’re telling me “You’re doing great!!” Uhm. I’m thinking that was a lie. I don’t think being so exhausted that you’re able to rack out for 25 seconds at a time is a good indicator of an efficient and effective process. (Yanno, my Zumba instructor says this too. She’ll say to the whole class “You guys are doing great!” I can see a lot of the class. That’s a straight up lie. About of third of the people in there either aren’t doing much moving because they can’t follow the choreography or they are following and are consequently on the verge of a major cardiac event.)

I suspect that my uterus is subpar. And possibly my vag as well. I guess it’s a good thing there’s no BirthOlympics. I’d be the Jamaican bobsled team of the BirthOlympics. Everyone would make to the finish alive, but in a slow cringe worthy fashion.

Just so you know – if I tell you that ‘You’re doing great!’, you’re not. This is now the official euphemism for ‘You’re doing it, but I really wish I didn’t have to be a party to it.’

*IV Stadol was absolutely the coolest shit. I could still feel everything. I just Did. Not. Care. I remember thinking “Man. That was a tough contraction. Really painful. That should bother me.” Ask for it by name!

Posted in Rama, Randomly Random | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Things That Piss Me Off #98154

Posted on February 22, 2013 by

This one requires some background. So… go watch this. I’ll wait. Go ahead.

Watch how identifiable

Look how fantastic that is. Jessica has some kids’ stuff lying around her house. And she’s working from home. There she is being a working mom. JUST LIKE ME. (Only if I was working from home I wouldn’t be wearing that outfit. I’d be in my PJs. And oh holy shit would working from home rock.)

Now that we have all identified with Jessica, read this.

Additional useful information

I HATE THESE PORTRAYALS OF CELEBRITIES. It makes me want to kick someone in the face. (They’d probably have to kneel down and let me do it, because my flexibility is shit. Anway…) Jessica Alba or any other celebrity parent is in NO WAY just like me. You can’t sell that to me. Ever. It’s not going to happen.

Yes, I know that no matter how much money you have if you are an involved parent that parenting is tough. Okay. I’ll give you that one. There just isn’t any comparison though to being a rich as hell parent and being…. Me. Whether you are a celebrity or aren’t, the rich part matters.

There are a LOT of parents and single parents that have it a lot worse than I do. I know that. I busted my ass and kicked and scraped and struggled and took out student loans (and by the way, those payments seriously suck) to get a college degree in a field where I could make some decent money. After unitelliglbemumblednumber years of working in my field, I make pretty good money. I make almost twice the average household income in my area – but I’m not rolling in it. A solid decade of bad personal and financial decisions also doesn’t make a positive impact on the financial outlook. (But hey – I’m dealing with it…)

I live in the big middle where the cost of living is relatively low. I have a nice house in a good school district, a car and some decent furnishings and such. I still have to have a budget. I cook at home 6 nights a week on average. Eating out is too expensive to do more than once a week or so. I don’t get my nails done. I rarely go out without the kids because the cost of a sitter and a nice meal and drinks out isn’t worth it. We have DirecTV and NetFlix and the internet. That’s our entertainment budget. Ham and Cheese go to public school and participate in school and club extracurricular activities. Sometimes the extracurricular stuff stretches the budget as far as it will go. There is stress related to the budget. Making sure that all the necessities get paid for and there are enough little extra entertaining things to prevent a mutiny.

There’s also the stress related to time. I’m responsible for absolutely everything. I have to know about and take care of every class project and party, every good and bad grade, every practice and game, when every bill is due and how much it is, cook every meal, clean the house, do the yard work and handle any household repairs. OH. And show up to my job 5 days a week on time and per The Man’s direction.

I’m sure that’s exactly like Jessica’s life. She cleans her own MANSION. She logs into her Bank of America account to pay her water, sewer and trash service bill online. She doesn’t have anyone to help her keep track of schedules. When she gets invited to the Oscars or a movie premier, she really has to weigh whether she can find and pay for a sitter for the night. Or not any of that at all.

I’m sure Jessica is a perfectly nice person. I’m not picking on her. Well, I am, but simply because this particular commercial caught my attention and irritated the crap out of me recently. This little rant applies just as much to any other celebrity or rich person that tries to tell me that they are JUST LIKE ME. You aren’t. Unless you’ve been in the daily grind of the total responsibility of a 5 or 6 day a week job, kids and home on your own, you aren’t ‘just like me’.

I’m not saying it’s wrong for her to be rich. I say good on ya. Go out there and rake in the cash if you can. I’d do it too if I could. My skills while valuable, don’t hold the same market appeal as hers. Ahem. So be it. But seriously, shut the fuck up about being rich not being completely awesome. While I haven’t had the opportunity to be rich, I’m willing to give it a try if someone wants to finance that. Obviously that would be completely for scientific purposes of comparison. My hypothesis: Meeting my daily responsibilities to my home and family without having to worry about money on a day to day basis would be a fucking shit-ton* easier.

SO INTERNET – prove me wrong. I dare you. Someone come along and offer me a gigantic pile of money so I can do a comparison for completely scientific purposes. The whole experiment would be painstakingly documented. For real. I’m nerdy as shit like that. GO!

*Definition 3 applies to this highly scientific item

Posted in No, Really, Rama, Rants & Raves | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

[imaginary] Dr Phil interviews Rama

Posted on February 18, 2013 by

Perspective is a bitch sometimes. Most of the time is sucks the most when it’s absolutely something we need to see. I have to confess I spend a lot of time squinting and making things look fuzzy on purpose so that I don’t have to deal with the reality of it head on. Plausible deniability, baby. No, Dr. Phil, it’s not working all the great for me. Thanks for asking.

So, Dr. Phil asks, what is it that brought on this sudden epiphany about perspective? (Imaginary Dr. Phil is excited to be able to use words like ‘epiphany’ with me since I’m not a brain dead moron.) Well, Phil, a lot of things. But specifically, some spring cleaning. It’s been almost 2 years since Harvey moved out and I’m STILL finding things that he hid from me.

Rama, what are you finding? Did he cheat on you?

Yes. But I already knew that.

What did you find?

It’s not what I found. It’s the fact that I’m still finding the same things. Paystubs that were stashed so I wouldn’t know how much he made. Things he bought and hid the boxes and receipts because he knew I’d say we didn’t need whatever it was when we were on a really tight budget. Things he dirtied or ruined and hid rather than cleaning up or fixing/replacing.

And why is it that this bothers you after 2 years?

During the time we were together I never realized the lengths he would go to in order to do whatever he wanted. Get whatever he wanted. It’s only after all this time and finding lots and lots and lots of evidence over these 2 years that I realize what a waste it was for me to try to stick it out and make things work. He didn’t value me and my wants and needs. But the worst part is neither did I. I let him do that.

If you want more, you have to require more from yourself. Why did you let him devalue you?

I thought I was supposed to. Married meant I was supposed to have my spouse’s back. We were a team. Us against the world. He was supposed to have my back. I simply couldn’t believe that my husband really did not give one single shit about me. I was a vehicle to get what he wanted that he put up with because the benefits outweighed the negatives. The negatives all had work arounds anyway. I had his back. He had his back. I had a knife in my back.

Okay. Sometimes you make the right decision; sometimes you make the decision right. That’s what you tried to do. Make the decision right. So, all this time later, why does that still matter?

Well Phil, it doesn’t. The magic of divorce is that he’s still making the same mistakes (from my perspective mistakes) that he was making 10 years ago and I get to think they’re funny because they aren’t my problem. It took the repeated finding of stuff to remind me that I deserve a hell of a lot better than that.

Sometimes you’ve just gotta give yourself what you wish you were getting from someone else. So, what’s the take away from this, Rama?

A couple of things. 1) I don’t need a man. Having some help sometimes would be awesome, but I can make it all work just like this. In fact, it’s a shitload easier to do it myself than to drag someone unwilling along for the ride. 2) I have a lot to offer someone who is willing to work with or overlook the fact that I’m batshit crazy. 3) Not being with someone is totally fine.

I think this has been a great learning experience for you, Rama. You’re only lonely if you’re not there for you. It sounds like you’re on the road to being there for you. I look forward to hearing about how things turn out as you go forward. Thanks everyone for tuning in today. So long!

Posted in Chuck & Harvey, Drama, No, Really, Rama | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Dear Rama: Examples of the Wisdom of Rama

Posted on January 10, 2013 by

Here is an illustration of the kind of helpful friend, mother and co-worker I’ve been just this month. All both of you that read this should feel free to ‘Ask Rama’. I can be just as helpful to you. These are actual conversations I’ve had with people, primarily via text but some parts were in person as well.

For informational purposes: Haley is a colleague and Dave is a friend from way back.

~~~~

Haley*: I want people to leave me alone. [People keep asking me questions about things that I’m not that familiar with. I’m just helping someone else out.]**

Me: Work some random nonsense words into your answers and see if anyone notices.

Haley: (Completely unfazed by my response. This is why we’re also friends.) I try. I think they know what’s up.

Me: Try answering in Danish***. As though you’ve suddenly forgotten English.

~~~~~

Haley: The new guy is now my best friend.

Me: Which one?

Haley: The one that is in here every 10 minutes.

Me: Do you need me to dick punch him?

Haley: Yes. I don’t know how to politely tell him this is not my area. I’m just helping out and I don’t know all the details.

Me: Say exactly that.

In Danish. Adopt an accent immediately. Pretend to be FROM Denmark. Speak only in broken English.

Haley: I already told him I don’t know anything. He laughed.

Me: Tonight make vanilla pudding. Put it in a mayo jar and keep it on your desk. Get a spoon and take a few bites when someone undesirable comes to ask a question.

Haley: (Laughs)

Me: Get a terra cotta pot. Keep crushed Oreos in it. Occasionally sprinkle ‘dirt’ on your ‘mayonnaise’ as you eat.

~~Later~~

Haley: The guy just asked [a detailed question which I didn’t know the answer to]. I replied *shrug*

Me: Did you shrug in Danish?

~~~~

Haley: The guy keeps asking me questions. I say I don’t know. He just stands there until I guess an answer.

Me: How have you not stabbed someone?

Haley: I want to throw things. [How many times do I need to tell them I don’t know?]

Me: I got nothing. Apparently you look knowledgeable. I tell people ‘I don’t know’ and they believe me.

~~~~

Dave*: I’m going about [my job] all wrong. Instead of getting promoted off of merit and hard work, I should be fucking my way to the top.

Me: Totally. Work on that.

Dave: Meh. My manager is a lesbian, so that won’t work and above her I would have to be gay and I just don’t see me getting on my knees.

Me: You could just be a bottom.

~~~~

Text to Ham from outside her dance studio: I’m outside. But I’m not telling you where. It’ll be like hide and seek. You just have to figure it out. In the dark.

In my defense this was particularly funny because I was parked directly in front of the door to the studio. She just shook her head at me.

~~~~

Haley and I had a conversation about how the electronic file she was working with was nonfunctional. There were boxes where information was supposed to go but the electronic file won’t allow you to fill them in due to a series of stupid actions by others.

Me: Put random information into the boxes that may or may not apply. The project manager will just bitch and mark everything up anyway.

Haley: Yeah. That would be an option if the boxes could actually be filled in.

Me: Print it out. Write the info in with a purple pen. Scan it and save it in the project file.

~~~~

Go ahead! Ask Rama!

*Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

**Long bits of conversations have been paraphrased. This is indicated by bracket because I like brackets and think they don’t get used enough.

***Haley actually speaks Danish. Fucking CRAZY, right??!

Posted in Rama, Randomly Random, Whatever | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Catalysis

Posted on January 7, 2013 by

I had this awesome plan. I was supposed to have some time off over the holidays that were going to leave me rested and recharged. That worked about as well as most of my plans.

As a parent, the holidays are really draining. Maybe there really are some parents that are as happy and shiny about all the festive stuff as their FaceBook pages would lead you to believe. Personally, I don’t buy it. Maybe it’s a function of the fact that I’m a single parent. Although the years that I wasn’t single were equally draining. (I think that was a function of being married to Harvey – but whatever.) During the holidays I’m expected to be less of a bitch while undergoing extreme personal and financial stress. This is a very tall order for normal people. And we all know that I’m not one of those.

Now the holidays have passed. It’s a new year. Yay. The idea was supposed to be that things would be neat, organized and ready for back to school. I would have got some rest too and feel more centered. Naturally, that’s not a bit of what happened. The Christmas decorations are still up, including the damned 10 foot tall, bodged together 100 pound monstrosity of a tree. At some point about 250 pounds of Christmas shit has to hauled back up the rickety ass attic stairs. That should be fun. Someone should video it.

The house is also a disaster. Due to a series of unforeseen events, all the planned housework got scrapped. The little errands and foraging for necessary information also got scrapped. FUCK. So here it is… already the second week of January and I feel like there’s a big black cloud of unfinished business hanging over my head. I know I need to tie up a metric shit ton of loose ends. If I could just get started I would find that each task isn’t a big deal. I could blaze through the list. If I could just get started.

But I can’t. Get started. Why?? Because I’m fucking crazy. (I really thought we had already established this.) The combination of unforeseen derailing events and the post-holiday let down has me in a mental fog. I WANT to do stuff. But when the time comes to actually do it I get irrationally frightened.

The amygdala is a motherfucker. Look it up (It’s part of the brain.). That little shit is responsible for the fight or flight response. This is a fantastic mechanism if you’re being attacked by lions. But when your attacker is a bank account with a low balance, running away isn’t a very effective method of coping with the situation. But this is the brain I have and I have to work with it. When it gets overwhelmed, my amygdala interprets that as life threatening. Does that make sense? No. You have your brain pumped full of hormones that are telling you that you are about to die unless you RUN and then get back to me about getting my shit together.

I need a catalyst to overcome the activation energy of this situation.

What the fuck am I talking about?? I know all both of you that read this blog just asked yourself that question. I’m talking about this:

20130107-134546.jpg
The relationship between activation energy (Ea) and enthalpy of formation (ΔH) with and without a catalyst, plotted against the reaction coordinate. The highest energy position (peak position) represents the transition state. With the catalyst, the energy required to enter transition state decreases, thereby decreasing the energy required to initiate the reaction.

That makes perfect sense, right??

The idea here is that in a chemical reaction, it takes more energy to initiate the reaction than it does for the reaction to continue. Once the activation energy is overcome the reaction will continue (barring other intervention) until it reaches equilibrium. And I could damn sure use some equilibrium. Let’s relabel this graph to apply to life:
20130107-135149.jpg

The relationship between Effort to Get Shit Started and Change in Effort Required to Not End up on ‘Hoarders’ with and without a catalyst, plotted against the Life coordinate. The highest effort position (peak position) represents the mobilization state. With the catalyst, the effort required to enter mobilization state decreases, thereby decreasing the effort required to get shit started. The minimum energy state is the subsistence state. The subsistence state for this particular Life is defined as the minimum effort required to keep yourself and your children fed, clothed and out of state custody.

Suddenly it’s all clear to you. (Probably.) The activation energy (Effort to Get Shit Started) is basically a fucking mountain. I’ve been climbing, but then I slide back down. It’s steep as hell. If I could just reach the mobilization state then things would be good. What I need is a catalyst. A little something that would make it easier to get started. I don’t have a clue what the catalyst is though. A lot of bona fide reactions use platinum as a catalyst. I’m pretty sure some platinum jewelry would get me going. Problem is candidates to buy me expensive shit are thin on the ground. I do have a list of things that I know do NOT work as catalysts: beer, junk food, watching sports, checking my bank balance, going to work, opening the mail, browsing Pinterest.

So that’s where I am: being followed around by a black cloud, browsing Pinterest and comparing my life to chemistry while I search for a catalyst to help bring me to equilibrium. I’m blaming my amygdala.

Posted in Rama, Randomly Random, Srsly, I'm serious | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

I am Profoundly Broken

Posted on January 4, 2013 by

Yep. I am profoundly broken. Let me tell you, it came as a big surprise to me too. Not only am I messed up enough to need to embrace change; this revelation was made to me on Christmas day. Merry fucking Christmas indeed.

“How?” “How,” you ask, “was this important information conveyed to you?” Via email, naturally. It makes perfect sense that when a person that barely knows you wants to tell you something as important as how uncommunicative you are, how much you are suffering and how badly you were abused as a child, email is the best way to do that. Email is a very personal and sincere way to tell someone whom you have been in the presence of maybe 0.15% of the their waking hours over their lifetime that their life is not worthwhile or enjoyable – but it can be if they choose to change and deal with their ‘issues’.

After I recovered from my initial shock that my life was neither worthwhile nor productive, I delved into the topic a bit further. More shock!! More Horror! I am a slut. As if that wasn’t enough, I was traumatized by acts of my family as a child which I do not even remember. At all. Even a tiny little bit. The particular incident cited made such a major impact on my childhood mind that I have repressed it completely. Either that or it was a complete non-happening. One of the two. BUT – I was not being judged or blamed for being a total cum dumpster. (Except that my life isn’t worthwhile or productive… I guess… somehow.) Excuse me for a moment, I need to go suffer some more.

Great. I feel much worse now. That was some excellent suffering. Perhaps I can manage to keep from killing myself for a few more minutes if I try a little to forget the childhood trauma that I don’t remember.

It has also come to light that having a college degree, white collar job, a home and two kids that are reasonably normal is a rationalization. None of that matters. I am still profoundly broken. (And slutty.) But there is hope for me. The second half of my life could possibly not suck so much. A person that barely knows me can help!

Being as completely screwed up, unhappy and useless as I am I had to decline the offer of alternatives to my suffering. See, when life has no moments of joy and you are not in any way productive there just isn’t any way out of it. I am a victim (reportedly). I was so sadly abused as a child that Humpty Rama cannot be put back together again. BRB. Gotta go screw someone random.

Fantastic. Now that I have no dignity to go with my uselessness and suffering, I’ll go back to my regularly scheduled programming. To wit: raising two kickass smart alec kids, paying my own way, being sarcastic and doing crafty shit. (I’ll do my best not to enjoy any of it, since that is what broken slutty people do. I guess we’re shit out of luck on not being productive since I get paid to do a valuable job. Fuck! One more thing to despair about. I can’t even be an uncommunicative unproductive slut properly.)

There. I feel better now. Or worse. Wait. How am I supposed feel? I’ll go ask someone who doesn’t know me.

Posted in Rama, Rants & Raves, Total dramarama | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

I Do Not Negotiate with Terrorists

Posted on October 5, 2012 by

I saw an article today about the art of negotiating with your children. I clicked through to read an article with such a title out of pure shock and horror. There were admonitions like ‘don’t bulldoze the conversation’, ‘don’t ask the impossible’, ‘Be clear and make your point and wait for a response’. All of this is great advice if you are talking to a reasonable person. Children are not reasonable people.

The definition of a terrorist is a person that engages in the systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some goal.

*vegetable chucked off the highchair table and onto the clean floor*

‘I’m going to run away!’

‘I hate you!” *door slams*

*refusal to eat homecooked meal followed by:* ‘Well I guess I’ll just starve then.’

‘Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.’

*screaming tantrum*

All of the above are instances of the use of violence and intimidation. By children. By my children. Children are terrorists and I do not negotiate with terrorists.

This idea that I should treat my kids as though they are adults, but smaller, is completely asinine. They don’t think like adults. It takes like 25 years (35 if you’re male) for your brain to develop all the skills to think a situation through and come to some reasonable course of action. I mean that. I was an idiot for a long long time. Kids are impulsive and selfish. They want what they want right damn now. Consequences? What consequences?? Just like terrorists. They want what they want and they will blow shit, including themselves, up to get it.

I’m not going to let my kids blow themselves up. Either figuratively or literally. If they don’t like what I cooked for dinner then they don’t eat. Rama is not a short order cook and I don’t intentionally cook things that they don’t like. They ate it last week they can eat it this week. They are both going to pick up after themselves. I’m not having a couple of helpless little pissants on my hands. I don’t make them clean up because I don’t want to do it (I don’t). I make them clean up because they have to understand that the reward for keeping a clean place is efficiency. If they spend 20 minutes picking up no one has to spend a frantic hour looking for that thing that they have to have for their class project. And I don’t negotiate. You don’t want to pick up? TOUGH SHIT. I didn’t want to go to work today but you people have to eat and I get put in jail if I don’t feed you so…. Off to work I go. You don’t want to do algebra? TOUGH SHIT. It’s on your class schedule and you are doing it no matter how stupid you might think it is. You don’t want to go to sports practice tonight? TOUGH SHIT. You signed up for it and I paid for it and you are going. If you’re sick you better spike a fever or puke up a lung. Otherwise get your gear and get in the car. You want to know why you have to do something? Because I told you to do it and that’s all the reason you’ll ever need. (That last one is a routine quote. Feel free to borrow it for your own use.)

The idea here is that they (like I eventually did) learn that you cannot have what you want right damn now. Do you see a problem yet?? Ah HA!! Yes. Too many kids who DO think that they can have what they want right damn now. And the reason is because of people like the pinhead that wrote the article that was published on a major internet news and search provider’s page. I am an adult. I have the ability to think things through and yes, as a matter of fact, I do know better than my kids what is good for them. They will use whatever belligerent, sneaky or nefarious means they can to get what they want. Even when what they want has a pretty good chance of blowing them up. They won’t have thought that far because they’re kids. Kids behave exactly like terrorists and Rama does not negotiate with terrorists.

Posted in Ham & Cheese, No, Really, Pissed Off Bitch Mode, Rama | 1 Comment