…the who cares girl…

Double hoopin’ in the backyard.

My mother and I got into a little argument over the phone last night. She was telling me her views on me taking Celexa while pregnant–again. I was tolerating the stories about how when she was pregnant she “didn’t even take aspirin” and how “there’s been a huge increase in autism and there must be a reason for it” and how, if the drug is affecting my brain, what could it possibly be doing to my unborn child’s brain? I was tolerating it mostly because we had just had this exact same conversation the day before.

She crossed the line, however, when she said that taking antidepressants was “the easy way out.” That’s when I got mad.

“Easy way!” I shouted. Okay, maybe just raised my voice slightly. “I’ve been to therapists, counselors, and read every book out there on dealing with anxiety. This is not the easy way!”

I mean Christ, I’ve been battling the anxiety demon for years. That’s the primary reason why I quit drinking (next month it will be two years). Don’t you think if there was a non-drug cure for panic attacks, I WOULD HAVE FIGURED IT OUT BY NOW?

This pregnancy/meds dilemma is giving me more anxiety, so I’m trying not to obsess over it. I can quite comfortably not think about it all day long, until my mother brings it all back again. I love my mother, but she drives me crazy.

In other news, today is the last day that I’ll be in my 20s! Maybe I should take some self-portraits. Sniff.

I started having panic attacks when I moved to Seattle. Over the years battling anxiety, there are things I have discovered that make it worse:
- booze
- cigarettes
- caffeine

There are things that make it better:
- exercise (especially outdoors)
- Xanax, and
- SSRIs.

I took Paxil on and off for years, and started taking Celexa nearly a year ago because it has less side effects. Every time I go off the Celexa, the anxiety/panic attacks, or “cray crays”, as I like to call them, return, and I am forced to take Xanax. When I’m on the Celexa, I hardly ever have panic attacks, and my anxiety rarely develops to the point when I need to take a Xanax.

Now I’m thinking about getting pregnant. I’m currently taking 20 mgs of Celexa (minimal dose). I don’t drink anymore, quit smoking, I’m taking prenatals, I’m heavily considering exercise, but I really really really want to stay on the 20 mgs of Celexa through the pregnancy. And after.

My mother DOES NOT LIKE THIS IDEA. She’s certain taking Celexa will cause brain damage, autism, you name it, it’s all gonna happen to my baby.

So my question is, is it really better to go off the Celexa and suffer crippling anxiety during pregnancy, knowing that I can’t take Xanax? (Xanax is a big no-no for pregnant women–I know that much). My regular doctor told me that for some women, staying on the meds is better than going off of them. But “some women”. Am I one of those women?

So many questions. I’m meeting with an OB in a few weeks to ask her, but I don’t know what answer will satisfy me. I just don’t know what to do.

Guess the film!

Trust me, you’ll never fucking guess right. But if you DO, you’ll win a prize!*

Oh God, we finally watched “Where’s Poppa?”, starring the one-and-only Ruth Gordon as the dementia-riddled mother of a wimpy defense lawyer, played by George Segal, who is having a hard time taking care of her at home.

A lot of great lines in this film.

He meets the future love of his life while interviewing nurses to take care of “Momma”.

Momma can be vicious!

We laughed hysterically during parts, but I was kind of hoping the nurse would turn out to be evil and give Momma a taste of her own medicine and we both thought the ending could have been a little better, but there you have it. Still a very funny film. I would have burned it, but the Boy sent it back to Netflix the very next morning before I got the chance. Damn!

I have started research into this whole baby-making thing, as I have been off birth control since April and we stopped using condoms last week. That’s right–last week! At my parent’s house! Mwa ha ha ha! So far “research” has consisted of watching “The Business of Being Born“, which was free on Netflix, which makes an excellent case against having a C-section and for having a natural childbirth (one of the doulas in the film looked just like Lady Miss Kier and I yelped to the Boy, “I want my doula to be Lady Miss Kier!”). That’s all well and fine, but the fact is I nearly passed out from my one tattoo and removal of some warts on my knee years ago so I don’t have a lot of faith in my pain management skills. Given the choice of pain or drugs I’m going to choose DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS.

Other “research” involved skimming a few “Mommy blogs” last night, which was a mistake, because the ones I skimmed had horrible pregnancies filled with throwing up and hemorroids and insomnia and constipation, Jesus Christ, I couldn’t tear myself away. This was a bad idea. Kind of like being filled with anxiety and then reading message boards about anxiety–SOMETIMES THE INTERNETS ARE NOT HELPFUL.

My mother had no morning sickness, a great pregnancy, and a quick labor with me, her first child, so I’m going to use that as my guide, as my mother and I are alarmingly alike. So much alike, in fact, that when she started a new job recently (after 30 years of not working), she had a panic attack at work. That is so me! The only difference is, I’m medicated. And I like it that way.

The Boy is at church. I’m sweating over my morning coffee. Today’s goals are to not read any Mommy blogs and to paint and to work a little on typing up the book I wrote when I was 13. I still want to illustrate and publish it. Still. We’ll see how long this little phase lasts.

* You won’t win a prize, really, but you’ll win my respect. And hysterical laughter.

“Hmmm? What do you mean, you’re leaving me for five days?”

“Fine, screw you, hippie.”

Look at my sexy new rain boots! And these babies go alllll the way up to the knee, yes! No more wet feet when I go tromping around in the mucky-muck to fetch firewood or chasing the dogs around the yard.

We are leaving tomorrow morning to fly to Boise, and you know what that means. Quitting smoking! Hooray! At least three days of whining and sniveling and craving and probably shoving lots of fats and sugars into my mouth, but it’ll be worth it in the end, because this hacking cough I’ve developed after my beloved vanilla ciggies became illegal is tiresome.

Then it will be time to throw out the condoms and make a baby! That’s right, because I’m not getting any younger. Why, one month from now I’ll be turning the “dirty thirty”, as they say. Is that what they say? I wonder if this’ll turn into one of those disgusting blogs where I prattle on endlessly about every single bout of morning sickness and whine nonstop about my pregnancy, like that Dooce chick. I have looked at her blog exactly ONCE–I was eating oatmeal and she was talking about expelling a “mucus plug” and I nearly threw up and I haven’t been back.

In the meantime, today I’m going to smoke 10 billion cigarettes and try not to engage in any Elizabeth Wurtzel-style antics* like I did for 40 minutes yesterday and paint and think POSITIVE, POSITIVE, POSITIIIIIVE about the next few days.

* “Elizabeth Wurtzel-style antics”: stimulant-enhanced obsessive and needless attacking of body hair with your weapon of choice for an indeterminate amount of time. Wurtzel’s was tweezers, mine is a dry Gillette, let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend it.

“I’m scared to have kids.”

“Everyone’s scared.”

“Are you scared?”

“Terrified. I mean, look at us–we barely…”

“Barely water the plants. Barely feed the dogs…”

“Barely. But our lives won’t be complete without kids.”

“I know.”

A few photos from the barbecue/birthday party last Sunday:

I suspect I took this photo of Corinne and I right after she swigged down a shot of moonshine that a man with red cheeks was offering around. This isn’t a good photo, but it was the only one I took of us at the barbecue, together, with our hats on, so there it is.

We held onto Maggie and Molly during the barbecue, which took place in Mel’s front yard. There were a couple of dogs on the porch next door, and I knew Maggie and Molly would be unable to resist running next door and making new friends (enemies?), not to mention the platter of pork cutlets would have been snarfed down by Maggie. I was a little surprised to see meat at the barbecue, and people chowing down on fistfuls of it. Maybe eating meat is trendy again? Oh who can keep up.

The only other dog at the barbecue was a 4 month old pug, who was interested in Maggie until she stepped on her head. The pug’s name was “Monkey”, which is rather unfortunate.

A platter of cupcakes with birthday candles was presented to Mel.

My birthday gift to Mel was a print of this photo of her, which I presented framed, with a bow. Of course I was hypercritical of it, but she seemed happy.

As you can see, I mostly took photos during the cupcake presentation. The rest of the time I was yakking and not playing photographer. And that’s okay!

The birthday girl changed into a satin jacket and funky hat for the second part of the party–lawn darts and croquet at the park.

When we arrived at the park we let Maggie and Molly off their leashes, and they were happy.

Molly almost got hit with a lawn dart 3 or 4 times, but it all worked out.

I brought the throwing stick, and Corinne and I took turns throwing the ball for Maggie.

We left around sunset.

When the Boy returned from Spokane he had spent a couple of days with his pregnant sister, who is due in September with a girl. He informed me that the three baby names her and her husband were tossing around were Cordelia, Ronia, and Eleanor.

“Eleanor!” I shouted. “That’s my name!”

I had decided back in December that Eleanor was my choice for a girl’s name, because 1. “Elly” sounds cute and goes nicely with “Ollie” for the boy’s name and 2. it was my grandmother’s name, the influential grandmother who honed my obsession for costume jewelry and lucite grapes.

Without thinking it through (typical Liz behavior) I immediately sent an e-mail (against the Boy’s wishes) to his sister to inform her about my feelings towards the name Eleanor. In a nice way, of course, ending the e-mail with “I love you!”.

I had forgotten about it until my mother asked me on the phone yesterday how the Boy’s sister was doing and I told her about the e-mail I had sent. She freaked out all over me, of course.

“You have to call her!” she said. “She’s full of pregnancy hormones–this is how family feuds start! And maybe you won’t have any girls! Maybe you’ll have two boys!”

“Ugh,” was my response, but I did call the Boy’s sister and told her to “disregard” the e-mail.

She laughed, told me that she was like the Boy in that she didn’t get mad easily (that’s good). “Anyway,” she added, “Jerry wants to spell it “Elinor”, which is the more elven spelling.”

Elven spelling? Okay. Anyway, she’s pregnant and I’m not, so if she goes with the name “Elinor” then so be it. How can I stake a claim on a baby name when I’m not even knocked up, eh?

In other news, the temperature is supposed to be over 100 degrees today. Yippee-ki-yi-blerp.