Just Another Way Healthcare Is Failing America

I do not have any fancy x-ray machinery in my house to confirm this unfortunately, but I’m pretty sure I have broken my back.  I’m not sure what else but a spine snapped clean in two could make me feel as miserable.  Ok, well but GEEZ, maybe it’s not that bad, I’ll ratchet the piss and moan back a notch, but it’s enough that I am lying here trying to will the brownie ice cream in my freezer into my bed with Jedi mind tricks instead of walking the 20 feet it would take to get it.  Mostly it’s my muscles – specifically, my stoop-over-and-hoist-26-pounds-of-ham-hocks-and-eyelashes-muscles as well as my keep-violently-thrashing-baby-cougar-from-smashing-skull-to-smithereens-muscles that are bothering me. Maybe when they send you home from the hospital with all that free stuff like the (loathesomely inadequate) new parents brochure, diapers, wipes, TV (we had to unbolt ours ourselves, they totally forgot) and baby lotions, they should include a handy poster for you to hang in the most frequently used room of your house that says “DON’T FORGET TO LIFT WITH YOUR KNEES, MORON.” I am a simple girl, and need things like this put in my face in all caps. Oh well, too late now. I am one hip heft away from paraplegia. Piss! Moan! Rosebuuuuuuud….

Dude, Where’s My Dudes?

I had a revelation while talking to a (female, natch) friend recently, and it was this: I am never around men.  No, but seriously, never. I mean, sure, I have a few guys I know pretty well, I’m friends with guys on Facebook, I am married to a man (at least I’m pretty sure I still am, law school has consumed him so much that we communicate solely by social media now. HEY L WE’RE OUT OF MILK ALSO YOUR MOM CALLED) but apart from the occasional conversation at church on Sunday or the rare glimpse of a dad who drops off his kid at the preschool, I live in Estrogen City, USA. I work with only women and I spend the rest of my day in my house with kids or in places where the majority of frequenters are stay at home moms or (female) nannies. Don’t get me wrong, I love the ladies, and there’s nothing better than a meal with one of my closest girl friends, but I have to say: I am missing some XY in all this XX action. (One more X and that would be a whoooooole other post, AMIRITE.)

I don’t even know how to fix this situation, really. Somehow calling up some guys and being all, “HEY WILL YOU BE MY BFF IT’LL BE TOTES AWESOME!!!!1!!” seems….awkward.  Plus, most of the guys I know are married, and there is like a code of conduct that you just don’t want to mess with (for good reason), unless you are living say, at Melrose Place, or are a doctor on Private Practice (Addison Montgomery, I’m looking straight at you). But man (pun intended) do I miss a little male perspective on daily life. If there is anything I’ve learned from being married for almost nine years, it’s that men and women are wired completely differently, and rightfully so. It’s good to have a little yin to your yang, a little logical to your emotional (I’ll let you interpret who’s who for yourself in that one), a little Will to your Grace. Or something.

I guess for now I’ll just keep on having those uncomfortably long conversations with my grocery bagger until I get a different job. Eggs go in a separate bag to prevent breakage? Fascinating! How about those [SPORTS TEAM NAME HERE]? I think it’s their year!

(GAH. Will, please give me a call. KTHNXBAI.)