You deserve better but this is all I have.

Yesterday, probably still reeling from the psychic trauma of Thanksgiving Weekend With Every Living Relative, I forgot to take some Very Special Medication that Mommy Takes Because of Something You Did. I’m such a delicate wee thing that my dosage is extra-extra-low because that is all my willowy frame requires, but the bad thing about being on the teensy-weensy dosage is that once it leaves my body I’m WHOOPSY DAISY paddling around in a sloppy hell of withdrawal. So today I woke up soaked in sweat, reeling around my suddenly tilt-y apartment. When I saw two Henrys reaching for me from their two cribs, I knew I was in trouble. Fortunately the Husband is working nights this week, so once I roused him from his slumber, which I did by gently calling “GET UP I’M DYING OH CHRIST,” I quickly medicated myself and returned to bed, where I had dreams that I was Buffy the Vampire Slayer (how sad am I, still dreaming about a show that ended years ago? Quite sad) and a Herbie-the-Love-Bug-type car was roaming the streets of Brooklyn, announcing that it was the harbinger of the apocalypse. (If I wrote the script to this movie, I would title it DOOM BUGGY. That is an excellent title, and you, privileged reader, can take it. There, it’s yours. Don’t say I never do anything for you.) And I was all “bring it on” and I was tossing my pretty pretty hair this-a-ward and that-a-ward because I was Buffy and my hair was so blonde! So blonde and so pretty!

When I woke up, it was 1 p.m. This pretty much set the tone for the day.

Another thing that happened yesterday is that I went for a physical. I haven’t had a physical since the 80s—I remember the nurse instructing me to remove my shoulder pads and leg warmers before putting on the day-glo gown--so it seemed time. I didn’t realize I was getting the extra-vigilant doctor who would alert me to every possible thing that could ever be wrong with me, so I left there a little freaked. Extra-enthused doctor informed me that I have a GOITER (well, okay, “enlarged thyroid,” but isn’t that a goiter? Isn’t it? Oh, why didn’t I buy the iodized salt?) and HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE (okay, just a high reading, but my reading usually peak at 90/70, usually they’re so low that by all rights I should need to do a handstand to get the blood away from my ankles before I’m conscious enough to sign a check) and also several other things that I can’t mention here. Oh, and apparently because there’s so much cancer in my family, I’m a fool for not seeing a genetic counselor because I’m a ticking time bomb, people! Tick tick! So I’m scheduled to get all kinds of tests and she gave me the name of this counselor with the words “FAMILIAL CANCER SYNDROME” underlined next to it.

I called my mother looking for more specifics on the dead in our family, hoping that perhaps I had overstated the cancer running amok throughout the generations. It was a mistake, because my mom distrusts doctors and their voodoo practices. She truly believes that if you have something wrong with you and you don’t know about it, it will simply vanish. Poof! But if you make the mistake of going to a doctor and getting it treated, you, my friend, are doomed. Not just doomed. Doooomed.

So there I was just trying to get the facts and my mom is on the other end shrieking YOU’RE NOT GETTING CANCER! STOP IT! And then the rest of the conversation went like this (facts have been altered not to protect anyone but because I am simply too lazy to rise from my chair and find my notes):

Me: So how many brothers and sisters did grandma have?

Mom: 8? Wait, let me think. 12. No. No, 8. 6 brothers, 2 sisters. Including her. So she had 7 brothers and sisters.

Me: And did they all die of cancer, or…?

Mom: They were so old! When you’re old it doesn’t count. That’s what my doctor said. It’s not genetic if you’re old. They weren’t 35! They were OLD!

Me: What were their ages?

Mom: So let’s see, there was Mama, she was 74; there was, hmm, Salvatore, Uncle Sally, he was 62…

Me: Cancer?

Mom: Oh, cancer, yeah. Terrible. Colon cancer. Because all he ate was sausage. Seriously, it was all he ate.

Me: [Making a note never to eat sausage again]

Mom: Uncle Maddy, 60s, also colon cancer.

Me: Let me guess--sausage eater?

Mom: [dreamily] Uncle Maddy loved the sausage.

It went on like this for a while. Apparently my family is evenly spit between lovers of sausage and lovers of booze and/or cigarettes—or, hell, all of the above! Italians are fun!

Do you know what else is fun? Talking about dead people! There are so many of them! Think about it--they outnumber us. They could totally rise again and they would so kick our asses. And in reality my slaying power is minimal and my hair is short and brown. We are so screwed.

People get older! And other news.

Today my older nephew turns 21. It’s very strange to watch someone whose diapers you changed become an adult. He changes his own diapers now. And I’m not sure about this, but I think he’s around 6’10”. And his voice is lower than Barry White’s (especially now that Barry White is dead) and he has Hulk-like muscles that rend his garments even when he’s not in the least bit angry. It’s entirely too weird. David: enough with the growing.

September is our two families’ Month of Birthdays: on the 13th, 14th, 16th, 18th, and 23rd, we are expected to honor our beloved family members, and honor them RIGHT or they will be SO PISSED at us. Besides straining our budget (cards aren’t free, you know!) this has had the effect of entirely confusing Henry, who I think believes that from now on, ours is a Happy Birthday world. This is life, now: we put candles into cupcakes and we sing that damn song over and over and if we want to give anything to anyone else, we wrap it in multicolored paper first. Henry’s become an old hand at the Happy Birthday song, but his rendition is alarmingly weary and jaded. By the time we reach his birthday, which is oh my god coming up in a couple of weeks, he’s going to ditch us and try to find parents who aren’t so determined to be festive all the time.

In other news, I’m a pundit (read the entire article, because it’s quite excellent; my attempt at political humor is about halfway down). Many thanks to Carlene, who apparently had planned to describe me as a “Park Slope mother” but added “and writer” to the finished article so that I wouldn’t commit suicide. But actually I live in Prospect Heights*, Carlene. Prospect Heights**!

*I believe this is a relatively new moniker, as is Park Slope: originally this entire area was dubbed “Dungville” or “Mudhump” or “Where-Rats-Copulate.”

**Once, right after we had moved, I was walking to the gym when a man walking toward me glared and spat, “Park Slut.” (Apparently my sweatpants aroused in him a heady combination of rage and desire. What can I say?) And when I told my husband this he said, “You should have corrected him--you’re a Prospect Whore now.”

Dogs are such assholes.

My sister Liz and I were talking about dogs and what total jerk-offs they are.

Her family’s dog Sophie died last week. Liz is still pretty pissed off about the whole thing. “I am never getting a dog again,” she told me. “Actually, I’m going to get a dog when I’m 85, so that I can die before it does.”

“So, for revenge,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, “make that stupid dog cry, for a change.”

That’s the thing about dogs. You feed them, you pet them, you let them sleep in your bed with their paws poking you in the butt, you anoint them with carcinogenic (to you) flea and tick products, and because they’re animals with irritatingly short lifespans, when they fall ill you make sure they have a nice, peaceful death—I mean, they’re not overly troubled by dying. And after it’s all done, you find out what all your years of trouble have brought you: your heart has been torn from its cavity and gnawed up like an old chew-toy. Who needs it?

Apparently we do. And it’s all the dogs’ fault. They’re doing this to us on purpose, I’m sure of it.

Despite her (probably) sinister intentions, Sophie was, unfortunately, cute. She was a purebred (translation: inbred, eensy-brained) Springer Spaniel. A bit on the hefty side. But she had the glamorous Springer waves, so that her ears always looked like they had been Marceled. If she had been a person, she would have been an unmarried secretary from the 1930s, living in a women’s residence on the Upper East Side, starting on a promising new reducing regimen, hoping to catch the eye of her boss at the firm. She also would have had a predilection for eating poop.

Sophie was a droopy-eyed, quivering love addict. All you had to do was glance at her, and she would pad over to you, throw her body across your feet, and wait for a morsel of attention to come her way. Our dog Charlie was pretty hot for her (as much as a neutered dog can be hot for a spayed dog), but she made it clear that she wasn’t that kind of girl—dogs meant nothing to her; she was squarely in league with the humans. Once, in Liz’s kitchen, Charlie snuck up to Sophie, jumped up, latched on, and began frantically humping her. She quickly sat down, causing my dog to slide awkwardly off of her rump, and primly exited the room—leaving poor Charlie targetless, humping the air in frustration.

She panted loudly and constantly, and sometimes she smelled a little…off. But she was a nice doggie. Damn her.