The Purple Tutu Project

“If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you.

 You may have a fresh start any moment you choose,

for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not in the falling down, but the staying down.”

-- Mary Pickford

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Life isn’t always beautiful. Life isn’t always perfect.  Sometimes just living is a real struggle.  It felt like that earlier this week, when I woke up with an anxiety attack and my husband expressed his frustration by claiming he didn’t know which woman he would be waking up to in the morning – a happy, confident Angela or a nervous, anxious Angela.  You see, I don’t always get to choose because I suffer from bipolar disorder, and sometimes the illness determines my mood, despite all my best efforts to buck up and be happy.  It just doesn’t work that way with mental illness.

 

But, when I do have the choice, when I am feeling in control, I am choosing crazy, happy living.  I choose to live out loud.  I choose to be unashamed.  I choose to speak my mind.  I choose to laugh until I pee myself.  All of these things make me happy – deliriously, undeniably happy.  I choose to feel sexy and confident despite my weight gain.  I choose to trust in the knowledge that I make a difference and am exceptionally skilled, despite the conflicting opinions of the bastards who would keep me down.

So, this Tuesday, after I came home from my part-time occupation, I decided I wasn’t going to be a victim to the anxiety of the morning.  I was going to start over; I wasn’t going to wait until tomorrow.  I had a rough morning, and I was beaten – but I will never, ever be broken.  I will listen to the words of Mary Pickford, words you have probably seen around this blog before.  Therefore, I took my fresh start and chose crazy, uninhibited happiness.

 

I wanted to create it by any means necessary.  Consequently, I looked to my children, who see the world with wonder and awe in nearly every moment of their existence.  My daughter was happily dancing around the house in her tutu, one of many I had purchased for her recent birthday.  As she turned two, I thought a tutu theme was quite clever and appropriate, and Emily happily pranced around at her party.  She continues to cheerfully caper around in tutus, twirling in circles and giggling.  I want that; I want that kind of happy where simply whirling in circles makes you astonishingly blissful.  
 

 

 

To be that kind of elated and exuberant maybe I needed to sport a tutu as well, regardless of the occasion.  I needed to lounge around the house, laughing happily, amused by my own antics, sipping wine, and choosing crazy, happy living.  In those moments like my Tuesday morning, when you feel low and lost, and your happiness cannot be found, look to the daughters of this world.  Wear a pretty purple tutu, spin in circles, laugh without reserve, and love the life that you have been given.

That life is not going to be faultless or flawless.  There is going to be pain and deep, dark moments where you feel lost and alone.  Rest assured that you are surrounded by love and you will find yourself.  Take that fresh start; don’t stay down.  Stand back up and celebrate crazy, wonderful you.  Even in those moments where I doubt my self-worth, there is a seed inside of me that knows this life, with all its ups and downs, is worth living.  I’m glad to be alive, and I will celebrate in my puffy purple tutu. 

I made a Zazzle Shop, and I'm Sorry

I thought the wine was to blame, but wine couldn’t possibly be the culprit.  I can handle my wine, my friends.  So why the fuck was I up until 5 a.m. last night?  Aaah, yes.  It was that delicious, tempting Peppermint Mocha that I purchased after work; I often have a difficult time with caffeine.  However, I did not anticipate that sweet holiday classic coffee blend keeping me up all hours of the night.  The mocha is to blame for what transpired when I couldn’t sleep.

It all started out harmless.  In fact, I started out amazing after I picked up the children and got home.  I made a stunning chicken casserole of which I am very proud.  I cleaned up and put the toys and books that were scattered all over the floor away, I readied the table with plates, silverware, and wine glasses. I opened a lovely bottle of Clos Do Bois Chardonnay (this is a plug because this is my favorite Chardonnay, and you should so try it), and the family sat down for a meal together. 

After the meal was done and the dishes in the sink, I asked my husband if he could handle the kids so I could do my “bloggy stuff.”  So, I wrote and published a new post, read and commented on the great posts over on the yeah write challenge grid, uploaded some fun stuff to my facebook page, and interacted with the wonderful blogging community I have developed on twitter.  Bloggy stuff done, I snuggled the children for a while and then put them to bed when they nodded off.  I watched some Comedy Central with my husband, and then he headed for bed too, but I wasn’t tired.

The house was clean, and the family asleep.  I could have read a novel, but instead I found my way to Pinterest.  Fucking Pinterest.  There, I added some new stuff to my “CraftyShit I will Probably Never Do” Board (Isn't that wine cork wreath so cool, though?) and also pinned a few new recipes, seeing as I can actually be surprisingly and amazingly domestic when I so choose.  I started looking at Christmas pins and gaining inspiration for new traditions to celebrate with my family.  If you, too, wish to create new family traditions, check out Six Sisters Stuff.  Those crafty bitches really do have some wonderful ideas.  Clearly I am jealous of these women and all their wholesome, crafty, domestic goodness – but I sincerely do recommend following them.

Okay, envy aside (damn your green head for making me digress), I also encountered a wonderful ornament in my Christmas pinning, created by Jennifer Hall at Just Jennifer.  This is when I had one of my Liz Lemon “I want to go to there” moments.  I let Jennifer know how great I thought her ornament was, and noted that I really hope I end up receiving this ornament in the awesome exchange currently being hosted by the Sarcasm Goddess (sign up now – it closes December 10^th).  Then I decided I needed to make an ornament too, so I cruised on over to zazzle and set up shop.

I could have probably just made the ornament, but that’s not how my mind works (you know this by now) and it was about 3:00 a.m.  As I was still blaming the wine for my alert state at the time, I tried to name my shop “I Got Drunk and Made this Shop,” but zazzle said that name was too long.  Therefore, you will see my shop – “The Purple Tutu” – over on the sidebar.  My apologies, sincerely.  “This Shit is Really Expensive” is also too long for a zazzle shop name, just in case you were wondering.

So, yes, there’s a shop on my sidebar now.  Random products will probably appear during further bouts of insomnia, but I understand that no one really wants to buy that shit.  It’s okay.  If you forgive me for the shop, I will forgive you for not supporting it.  Let’s still be best friends.  However, you should know that if you buy a button, I will earn royalties of exactly twenty-five cents for every button sold.  Now, I figured this shit out, and right now my son is five months old (just turned today – smiley face).  So, if I earn one quarter every day until he is eighteen, I will have $1,605.25 towards his college fund.  Why don’t you want to my kid to go to college?  Just buy a fucking button! No, no, nevermind.  My apologies again. And all apologies for this really long post that basically boils down to an embarrassing sorry.

Who Wants to Ride the Crazy Train?

At my grandparent’s fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration, they had karaoke at the bar and restaurant.  If you know me in real life, you know I love karaoke.  As mentioned in a previous post, my two go-to karaoke songs are “I Touch Myself” and “Baby Got Back.”  Clearly, neither of these songs was appropriate for a fiftieth wedding anniversary.  Therefore, I avoided these two tunes.

 

However, I had somehow rationalized that Ozzy Osbourne would be a perfectly appropriate and moving tribute to my grandparents.  This is the same grandmother, conversely, who earlier said to me that night, “I can’t hear a damn word he’s saying.  I wish he would shut the hell up already,” while my grandfather was making a touching toast to her.  Ozzy’s “Crazy Train” came on the karaoke screen.  I was ready to blast out my best Ozzy impersonation, but I needed the help of my father, a true metal head whose physical appearance quite resembles Rob Zombie (okay, well, it did until he began badly balding). 

I found my father across the room and held one of the microphones out toward him, hoping he would join his daughter for a duet.  When he shook his head in negation to my clear, unspoken request, I added some words to my entreat.  “John Boy,” I hollered into my own microphone (yeah, that’s what I often call my dad), “Get your ass up here and sing some god-damn Ozzy with your daughter! Yeah! Whoo! Rock on!” I’m pretty sure there was additional, non-descript, unintelligible hooting and hollering, which I heard in my head as “Fuck yeah! I’m awesome!” and everyone else heard as “It is time to take me home.”

He still shook his head and refused to join me, even though I had just kicked ass to some “Paradise City,” so I could not at all understand his hesitancy.  Resigning to myself that this would be a solo song, I then screeched into the microphone, “Hells yeah! Who wants to ride the mother fucking Crazy Train?”  To this, my cousin gave me the most awful look of disapproval I have ever witnessed in my life, and the bartender turned off the microphone, pried it from my hands, and then asked if anyone else would like to sing. 

Haters gonna hate, but I’m still going off the rails on this crazy train … and I love this ride mother fuckers!!

 

P.S. – Sorry, Grandma and Grandpa.  I love you.  Heart icon.

Waking Up As Another Woman

I could tell my husband was becoming increasingly frustrated with me (or the illness—but it’s often difficult to separate the two) as I lay in bed crying and yelling that showering was simply too stressful at the moment.  It was physically evident that he was biting his tongue, trying to avoid saying a hurtful thing, because it wasn’t really me that he was growing so aggravated with.  Rather, it was my damn manic depression and the way this illness is capable of breaking me down so badly. 

He couldn’t bite his tongue anymore, and the following words spilled out, “I’m mad because I never know who I’m going to wake up to in the morning.” 

I sat up a bit more erect in bed, jolted by his honest, heart-breaking phrase as though it were a bitter hand back-slapping me across the face.  It was painful and ached, and I couldn’t reply.  “I don’t know who I’m going to wake up to” stung my sweltering cheeks, as tears began to fall like acid upon this freshly inflicted wound. Then his words rang in my ears like a pulsating rhythm trapped in my head by two tightly tamped ear-buds. The throbbing of this burning truth dulled eventually and I was left with only those words in a sea of silence and still melancholy: “I don’t know who I’m going to wake up to.”  I felt feverish and agitated as I was unprepared to see – really see – how this monster of mine was likewise clawing and ripping at the man I loved the most.

It was me, physically, that he went to sleep with every night.  It was me, in physical form, which he woke up with.  But who was I going to be? Fuck; even I didn’t know.  Every night, I prayed and fervently believed that I would awake as the me I most closely identify with.  That woman is bold and brave.  That woman is creative, humorous, intelligent, loving, and passionate.  She is the truest form of me – the me freed from the shackles of my mental illness.  That woman loves her children, happily reads them books, gets down on the floor and plays Little People and Lego Duplo with them.

The woman that woke up this morning was crying because the babies were crying, “Why are they crying? Make them stop! I’m not ready for this yet! I’m not ready for this!”  With motherhood, you don’t get to choose when to participate and when to just spectate.  I need to be capable of being a mother full-time.  Instead, I started hyperventilating and my husband had to get me a clonazepam.  I said I needed just a few more hours of sleep, but he told me to get up and get in the shower.  This is when I yelled back at him that he was pressuring me too much.

All he wanted was for me to clean up and hold my daughter until she calmed down.  All he wanted, he said, was for me to try.  I was trying, though.  Yes, I was screaming and crying, but all the same I was trying, as impossible as it was to identify my effort.  This shit is hard, my friends, when you feel like a fuck-up the second you wake up and wonder if anything you do is worth it.  You feel underappreciated and unloved, and you push others away.  You don’t see just how damn difficult it is for them, too, to love someone who is amazing one morning and a fucking mess the next.

My husband woke up with a woman far different from the one he went to bed with.  This wasn’t sexy or scandalous; it was tragic and trying.  I need to remember how closely linked we have become.  When I feel pain, he feels pain too.  When I worry, he worries too.  When I am crying, he cries too – even if he hides his tears and cries in solitude.  I don’t want him to cry.  I’m trying for my husband, and I love him so much.  I wish I could answer his question and knew which days would be triumphs and which would hold trials.  I can’t.  I don’t know who I am going to be in the morning either.  But, I do know that I am loved and that together we will make it through it all.  Whether that woman in the bed loves herself and feels confident, or she hates herself and feels worthless, the one certainty is that she adores her husband and is grateful for him each and every day.

The Twelve Wines of Christmas

#ChristmasStress is trending on twitter.  In between their shopping and baking, billions of twitter users have still apparently found the time to bitch about the holidays to a world of folks that don’t really give a shit.  People are still complaining about Black Friday madness, the difficulty of buying presents for boys, and the detangling of outdoor lights.  Black Friday got you pulling out your hair?  Here’s an idea: don’t shop that day! And so what if your neighbor’s holiday lights are better than yours?  Is there a cash prize being awarded on your block?  If not, relax and avoid that Christmas stress you feel it necessary to tweet about. 

Unfortunately, for as much as we all bitch about it, I think the majority of Americans love the holiday stress.  Misery loves company, right?  What brings two co-workers together more than complaining about the mother-in-law’s deathly fruit cake? I have tried to make a point of doing only what I want at the holidays.  I like buying gifts; I like seeing someone’s face light up when they unwrap a present I selected for them.  However, I sometimes don’t find the perfect gift and so I just don’t bother.  My best friend and I have been exchanging gifts since the fifth grade.  Some years she gets a present from me, and some years she doesn’t.   I don’t buy her a gift out of obligation; I buy her a gift when I spot something that speaks to me (like penguins and reindeer do at Pier 1).  If I receive no gift from her this year it won't matter either because, as cheesy and cliché as it sounds, I already have everything I need for the holidays right here in my home – my loving husband and adoring children. 

Despite having everything I need, I did bravely venture out on Black Friday this year, although I knew it might generate some of that much tweeted about Christmas stress.  I didn’t go out in my hometown either – there were no door-busting deals at the Ben Franklin that I know of.  We were visiting family in a larger city – a city with a mall (big time stuff given where I live).  We avoided the mall like the plague, though, and also steered clear of all major chain stores like Wal-Mart and Target. I wasn’t in search of one specific super deal like a flat screen TV for $99.00 or Crock Pot for only $4.99. I didn’t need any $1.00 DVDs or fucking half-price Fidget Friends or Furbies (Why are furbies back?!?).

In fact, I must boast that I actually had the majority of my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving.  Given this, the primary reason I had to go shopping was because I was down to two bottles of wine.  Two bottles!  Therefore, my first stop was to the World Market.  I left the store having made zero purchases for friends or family members, and 12 bottles of wine for myself.  You want to know how to make it through the holidays this year?  Do it the Not Appropriate Angela way – sleigh bells and shit loads of red wine. 

 

My Shopping Cart on Black Friday

After the purchase of wine, although I had not actually consumed any, I felt confident and brave enough to venture to Toys R Us to see if there were any super values for my children.  Okay, I got annoyed as fuck with the crowds there and left with only one item: an aqua doodle.  My daughter needs this so that she stops giving herself face tats (this is what I call it when she draws on her cheeks). Although no great bargains were found because I lack patience, I am immensely glad that we stopped at Toys R Us as I overheard one of the best conversations ever. 

“Mommy,” the little boy in the aisle next to me said while tugging at his mother’s winter coat, “This year, for Christmas I’m going to tell Santa Claus our house burnt down so I can get lots of extra toys.”

His mother looked back at him, appalled, and said, “Honey, that’s really not a nice thing to do.”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” he confidently replied, “I’m just telling Santa.  I won’t tell Jesus.”

So, go ahead my friends and get through this holiday season with Merlot, Cabernet, and Shiraz instead of holly and berries. Don’t worry.  I won’t tell Jesus that Christmas time makes you consume a bit more wine, and Santa clearly can’t judge you on overindulgences (as he approaches Diabetes with his cookie consumption).  Stop tweeting about your Christmas stress and simply start pouring the twelve wines of Christmas.  Merry Christmas to all and to all a fine wine!

The Twelve Wines of Christmas: Revised Christmas Carol

Do you think I can get Micheal Buble to sing this shit? 

 

 

 

 

 

I Wasted my Weekend: A Movie Review

I am going to begin this post by declaring that I was still feeling sick this weekend with cold symptoms, so I spent a lot of time just sitting on the couch.  Okay, now comes the guilty, embarrassing confession part.  While I was sitting on the couch feeling miserable, I watched a shit ton of cheesy Hallmark channel holiday movies.  I watched Naughty or Nice, Annie Claus is Coming to Town, and Hitched for the Holidays (starring Joey Lawrence!).  As these were all created especially for television, you can imagine their grandeur.  I am thankful that I also was able to catch Elf over at ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas.

When both Hallmark and ABC Family were playing Christmas films I have already watched this year (and it was only the second day of December), I had to do some channel surfing and ended up at Lifetime.  This is where I found the holiday gem The Christmas Consultant, which I now review for you so that you don’t waste two hours of your life, or feel compelled to blow your brains out watching this god awful shit. 

Let me begin with a brief synopsis of this film.  In what Lifetime describes as a “light-hearted comedy” (don’t believe them; you’ll be severely depressed after watching this crap), a workaholic couple with four children (Lifetime describes them as “quirky,” but I think they all need counseling) hires a Christmas Consultant to help them get through the holidays.  Caroline Rhea stars as the workaholic mother who ends up regretting her decision to hire a consultant. I deeply hope that Caroline Rhea also regrets her decision to be in this film; I trust it helped her with the mortgage or something because it sure as hell didn’t help with her acting portfolio.  I’ve saved the best part of this quick summary of the film for last: The star of this film, the Christmas Consultant himself, is none other than the spectacular, accomplished, acclaimed actor David Hasselhoff.  That’s right my friends, the Hof is here to save the holidays! But Rhea becomes disenchanted with Hasselhoff when the family ends up falling for him, and ignoring her efforts. 

At one point in the film, Hasselhoff proudly shares that he hears Christmas carols playing in his head 24 hours a day.  The tween and teen children of the household laugh hysterically at this and find the Hof endearing.  C’mon! I work with teenagers.  They would be calling that man a douche-bag, not laughing and giving hugs.  If Lifetime wanted me to buy into the fact that these children are charmed by Hasselhoff’s wild antics, they should have classified the film as a fantasy.  In addition to being a douche, turns out Hasselhoff’s character is also a liar, and everyone knows how much I hate liars after once marrying one. 

Throughout this movie, I was yelling at the television “C’mon!” at all the scenes that were just so unbelievable and terribly acted.  When the Hoff started a snowball fight to cheer up a grumpy, exhausted Rhea, I screamed, “Oh, C’mon now! They’re all smiling and joining in.  She’s still in her work clothes.  This man needs to be fired.  Fuck this movie!”  So, while it still was playing, I did begin to do other tasks around the home, and never found out if the movie ends up being worth it in the end.  I feel fairly confident declaring it sucked all the way through, and I read something about the Hoff’s character hooking up with a crazy cat-lady at the end, so I feel affirmed in my analysis that this movie is a fucking disaster.

Several times, I seriously wondered if David Hasselhoff’s character was supposed to be played as though he had special needs.  I know this is an insult to a community of bright, brave individuals, but it’s the truth.  Further, I wonder if the Hof himself (in real life) might have some special needs.  I mean, really, why is this man so famous?  I think it may be part of some Make-A-Wish plan.  That would explain a few other actors too, like Denise Richards and Kristen Stewart. I have often wondered if Stewart has Asperger’s syndrome because she behaves very similarly to the individuals I know with this diagnosis (not kidding). 

Regardless, my final review of the Christmas Consultant is two thumbs down – way down.  Seriously, it really wasn’t even worth it just to make fun of the Hof.  If you want to do that, just look up that sloppy hamburger eating and drunk ranting clip on YouTube.  Finally, on Lifetime’s homepage for this film, there’s a section that states: “If you liked the Christmas Consultant, try these other films: Dear Santa, Undercover Christmas, and Christmas Angel.”  I would suggest you avoid these too.

The Prettiest Mom in the World

For a while, my daughter said yes to everything.  She nodded her head, smiled, and said yes completely regardless of what inquiry was made.  Her father and grandfather took full advantage of this phase.  My husband would ask questions like, “Do you have the best dad ever?”  Emily would nod and say, “Yes.”  He would ask, “Do you have the coolest dad ever?” Again, she would nod and say yes. 

My father, a man who is constantly checking Craigslist for some need or the other (currently a Jeep), was able to use Emily’s adorable yes phase to convince my mother he needed to buy a boat.  “Emily, should Grandma let Grandpa buy a boat?” he asked in my mother’s presence.  “Yes,” Emily said and nodded, smiling gleefully at my mother.  A week later, our family was enjoying a pontoon boat ride in the warm summer sunshine.

I never used this phase to affirm any positive statements about myself, such as Emily has the coolest, funniest, smartest, most wonderful mother in the whole wide world.  I guess I just didn’t need that, and the men were having so much fun having their confidences built up and their ‘toy’ collections expanded.

This past week was not fun for me.  I was ill and missed four days of work.  I was in the clinic for blood work and scans trying to find an explanation to the dizziness and fainting that had occurred repeatedly throughout the week.  I did not believe I was cool, funny, or intelligent. I felt like shit, and that was that. 

Despite my suffering, it was evident that my daughter still viewed me as amazing and wonderful.  She wished to read books with me all day while I lay in bed, climbing on the bed with book after book and grinning at me.  I tried to help her, but she saw that I was sick and needed some assistance myself. So, she “read” her books to me, happily babbling away and smiling at me.  She rubbed my head like she had seen her father do in an attempt to relieve the pain.  She put Dora the Explorer stickers all over my face and nodded with an expression that asked, “All better now, Mom? All better?”  There is a serious Dora obsession going on with her right now, and I think she actually believed Dora stickers would cure what ailed me. 

The prettiest mom in the world, with the most
wonderful daughter ever!

However, I still felt dizzy and exhausted, despite Dora’s best medical efforts.  I felt like shit, and I trust that my appearance was dismal as well.  My daughter didn’t see how ugly I felt.  My husband was sitting next to us in bed after the sticker treatment, trying to get Emily to let me rest alone for a while.  He asked, “Emily, who’s the prettiest, most wonderful mom in the world?”  She confidently pointed her tiny finger at me and beamed with pride in the knowledge that she had provided the requested response.  “My momma,” she whispered.  “Mom, mom,” she continued as she pointed at me and smiled.  Then she leaned in, kissed me on my forehead (actually kissing one of the stickers), and nodded her head again. 

She was so damn confident that I was beautiful and remarkable even though I hadn’t showered and was surrounded by piles of used Kleenex. I was feeling poorly, so I viewed myself in a negative light.  But my daughter was happy and well, and to her, I truly, truly was the prettiest mom in the whole world.  Even when I’m feeling low, I need to remind myself to see the world the way she does – to see me the way she does.  If I can do this, I can conquer any illness.  I’m the prettiest, most wonderful mom in the whole world, and I am loved.  I say yes to believing in me.