Jan
28
Nobody really tells you about the hemorrhoids. I mean, sure, the pregnancy books might mumble something about inflamed veins COUGH COUGH NEXT SUBJECT, but they don’t prepare you for the day when you go to the bathroom and discover that someway, somehow, you have a . . . a small balloon protruding from your rear end. Possibly several balloons.
Perhaps you will panic, just a bit, and do some Unsavory Research on the subject. You will no doubt learn that hemorrhoids are exacerbated by “straining” when you poo. In fact, that is the main advice you will read, over and over: DO NOT STRAIN WHEN YOU POO. Unfortunately, pregnancy has caused your entire gastrointestinal system to slow to a crawl in order for your unborn child to more efficiently leech nutrients from your system, and frankly, if you do not expend a little effort in your output, so to speak, you’re pretty sure you’ll never take a crap again as long as you live.
And so you have these things peeping out from inside your BUTT, and oh, you can try and pretend they don’t exist, but my GOD, it’s like a CLOWN has crawled up your ass and an entire BIRTHDAY PARTY’S worth of INFLATABLE ANIMALS are housed up in there.
You have no idea what these so-called veins look like. You suppose there’s always the option of getting out a hand mirror and taking a look, but you figure you can quite easily go to the grave without enjoying that particular experience.
At some point, it becomes time to make a Very Shameful Purchase, and it occurs to you that it would have been one thing to have your tube of hemorrhoid cream go slithering casually across the conveyor belt along with a plethora of groceries during the light of day, but it’s something else entirely to be standing in a Walgreen’s checkout line at midnight with exactly two items before you: Preparation H and Tuck’s Medicated Pads with Soothing Witch Hazel. “Yes!” you may as well be shouting to the gimlet-eyed cashier. “I HAVE ENGORGED ANAL TISSUE, AND IT BURRRRRNS.”
You assume that once you’re no longer the size of a fully-grown African rhino your butthole will return to its previously benign state and all of your innards will go back to where they belong, but ho ho HO, THEN there’s the aftermath of a C-section, a procedure which involves your intestines being wrestled around and possibly used for a quick game of double dutch, depending on the skill level of your surgical team. For a full two days after surgery, nurses will pester you about whether or not you have “moved” your bowels, and the answer, of course, is DEAR GOD NO ARE YOU KIDDING ME, but in order to be allowed to go home you will lie and describe the giant movement that you produced — why, just this morning! By god if it wasn’t the size and shape of a Russian Typhoon, Nurse! Cracked the ceramic on its descent! Oh yes, all bowels moving just fine and dandy, thank you for asking!
Complicating matters is the pain medication you are taking, a side effect of which is constipation, and while you try and put off the inevitable for as long as humanly possible eventually there will come a dark and terrible hour when you experience childbirth for the second time. You’ve heard of the expression “shitting a brick” before, but you never imagined that you would become so intimately familiar with the sensation of doing exactly that.
The post-surgery, post-codeine Movement of Epic Awfulness will leave a souvenir in its wake, of course. If they were like fun-sized balloons before, you’ve got something more like the goddamned Hindenburg now.
Eventually, the horrifying things happening in your rectal area will recede, and just in time, because now you must turn your attention to someone else’s butt and the contents thereof. Welcome to parenthood! Luckily, the last smears of your dignity have long been wiped away.
Jan
27
JB’s workplace announced layoffs a few days ago, and while the axe did not fall on his position it whistled by all too closely. One of his coworkers who had been employed there for 16 years was let go, an employee who was by all accounts a high performer. His job seemed perfectly secure, much like we assume JB’s is.
Much local ado was made of this announcement, but it’s obviously not a unique situation. According to CNN.com, this month alone companies have announced more than 211,500 job cuts.
When I was looking back on my New Year’s blog entries for the last five years I saw a consistent theme of kvetching about my career. Five years of vague whining about not being fulfilled enough or feeling fully satisfied. Instead of getting off my ass and actually being proactive about making things better, I’ve been allowing myself to become more and more bored, unmotivated, and resentful.
What a ridiculous exercise in self-pity. Five years later, and what have I done to change my situation? Nothing.
I’ve become a stronger person in so many ways over the last few years. Why do I continue to let this one section of my life be something I’m not proud of? Why do I let inertia take over, when it comes to my job?
In the light of so many thousands of people being out of work, it’s a pointless, ugly luxury to wallow in the things that are missing from my work life. My job helps us pay our mortgage, buy groceries, save for our children’s college educations, and maybe even retire someday. If it doesn’t always seem like everything I once hoped it would be, well, it’s time to come to terms with that. It’s time for me to add meaning where I can, accept the state of things where I can’t, and take active steps instead of sitting still.
It’s only true that I don’t have other opportunities if I don’t seek them out; it’s only true that I’m mired in an unrewarding job if that’s the way I look at it. This is the year for me to end the cycle of discontent and start appreciating everything I have, across the board.
Also, I need to gather the fucking stones to admit that I want to write a book, and stop coming up with 45296905 reasons why I shouldn’t even try.
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