I had my Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend. It was fake turkey, mashed potatoes, those Pasta Sides chicken-flavored noodles, and peas.

I then spent two hours trying to get the remains of that dinner out of the recessed holes in my gums where my teeth didn't come all the way through. The oral surgeon says he is amazed that I haven't gotten an infection from this type of impacted wisdom tooth, because food can get under the gums and fuck everything all to hell, and that for me to go two years without any pain or infection is incredible.

Only one day of work left before I can stay in bed until I don't have crushing headaches anymore! I'm so excited for a stranger to cut my gums open and pull my teeth out. Do I get to keep the teeth? Does anyone know? I want to crowd them together in a little jar and taunt them. "Yeah, you don't like how that feels, do you, teeth? Little asshole teeth. I hate you, so I'm going to crowd you like this for the rest of my life."

Some people are assholes and I realize that they get their laughs in fucked up ways. But picking on grandmas at the gas station? Come on.

My grandma is a cashier at the gas station down the street from my house. She is a charming, hospitable Southern lady. She shines in social settings. At least in public. However, she has been under a huge amount of pressure lately, what with her oldest daughter and her family kinda freeloading in her house right now.

Last week she had a long line of customers, and one man was standing off to the side, just looking at her. She thought he was waiting for the bathroom pass, so she said, "Can I help you, sir?" His response?

"No, I was just thinking that watching you try to work that cash register is like watching a retard on the Weaver bus." (For anyone who doesn't know, Weaver is the MR/DD school here)

She promptly burst into tears in front of a store full of people. According to the store policy, she is not allowed to respond. So she was sent home for the day, crying, because of some mean asshole who had nothing better to do. If it had been me, I would have been over the counter and clawed his face off.

Don't be a jerk to my grandma, or anybody else's grandma. It's not very nice.

“Turn on the radio and sway to the music. With her sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance.”

Psh. I don’t know about any of the other 23 weeks-pregnant ladies, but I sure as hell don’t feel like dancing. I’m exhausted. It could be something to do with the dental headaches and the pain medication, or it could be the enormous weight hanging off the front of my body. I’m only five feet tall so I look kind of like a pre-teen girl carrying a a yoga ball. With boobs. Gigantic, sore, possibly alien boobs.
I have enough materal instinct to know that water will help with the weight-carrying issues. I dream of swimming pools and private bathrooms for every public facility. I need to get into the water, but I am sketchy on using a public pool, especially to wallow like a dead hippo. I’m considering buying one of those larger inflatable pools and setting it up in my basement. Then I can swim naked. …What? You think I’m going to buy a maternity bathing suit? Not on your life, honey. I look like a red zebra. With boobs. And a yoga ball.

I was looking through my old blog, all the pictures of the dogs and horses and rabbits and all the stuff on the farm. You wouldn't have caught me saying it a couple years ago, but I think I miss it.

I'm down to just Gizmo now, but when I lived there, we had three dogs. Now there are six, some of which I haven't even seen yet.


We had piles of rabbits. Literally piles of them.


Chief when he was a puppy. He's all grown up now, and working.


It's like it was an entire lifetime ago, training Sully and planting vegetables.


Sullivan.


My sister and Ed.

Time sure does fly, I suppose.

Since when are we not allowed to be dissatisfied with aspects of our country? I've noticed this trend lately in e-mails I receive from my radical right-wing uncle from Georgia. "If you don't like (insert government policy or program, public opinion differing from author's), then you should leave. As far as I'm concerned, if you've listened to "Teenage Wasteland" and didn't like it, then you can get the fuck out. This is America, goddammit! What are you, some kinda commie asshole?

So, according to my uncle in the forwarded emails he sends, we aren't allowed to complain about certain government policies, or express opinions that differ from those of people just like him. What gives, then, since I'm getting emails about Barack "Osama" trying to take the Christ out of Christmas, and pictures of him dressed up like an 1700s Native American? Or that letter from the former VP of Procter and Gamble, titled "Why You Scare Me," in which the author rambles off a big, steaming load of bullshit.

I didn't think I could be any more shocked by the immaturity of so-called adults in the U.S. And then this shit starts filling up my inbox. Honestly? Grow up.