How to Hangover: A Practical Guide for 38-Year-Olds

This past weekend was my cuzzy's birthday and we had lots of fun, of the get-a-sitter-and-drink-and-eat-lots-of-things variety.  The fact that it took me, I am not kidding, two full days to recover from one fun night got me thinking about the difference between being twenty eight and being thirty eight. Here we have my ruminations on that topic.

How a Hangover Goes When You’re 28 and You Haven’t a Care in the World:

1.  Leave bar.  Notice that you maybe drank too much.  Stop at a drive-through for a weird 2am burrito because burritos soak up alcohol.

2.  Gulp a glass of water with three Advil so you won’t have a headache when you wake up.

3.  Sleep until about 11:30 the next morning.  You awaken with a funny feeling in your head and gut, so you go for brunch with your friends.  A melty omelet and a pile of fried potatoes will fix you right up.

4.  Carry on with your day as though nothing ever happened because you are young and vital and no amount of ill-advised tequila will stand in your way.

How a Hangover Goes When You’re 38 and You Have Produced Children:

1.  Stop at the drive-through on the way home from the bar to get weird 2am burrito because you remember that this type of thing helped you when you were 28.  Scarf burrito, then immediately regret it because OHMAHGOD IT BURNS WHY DOES IT BURN SO BAD.

2.  Arrive at home with fire-burrito-boulder in your belly.  Have a brief conversation with the babysitter in which you try to look as sober as possible and she plays along because ha ha look at the drunk old people.  

3.  Check on children, put on your jammies, and perform your entire face-washing routine complete with the application of 3-4 anti-wrinkle potions.  You are an adult and skincare is important.  Marvel at how amaaaaazing your skin looks when you’ve had four gin and sodas and, god help you, a shot of Fireball.

4.  Gulp a glass of water with three Advil because you are very clever and there is no reason that 28-Year-Old Things shouldn’t work on a 38-year-old.  Fall asleep with a prayer on your lips that your children will miraculously sleep super late in the morning and will get their own breakfasts and also make no sounds before 10:00am.

5.  Wake up at 4:03am to a child sleeping on your face.  Notice that a brain-melting headache has taken residence in your skull.  Drift back to sleep anyway because if there’s anything you’ve learned by having children, it’s that you can sleep anywhere and through anything.  You’re a grownup, dammit.

6.  Awaken with the first child at 6:27am. Get in a whisperfight with spouse over who will rise with that child; lose fight, roll out of bed while shooting murder lasers at spouse with your eyes. 

7.  Take stock of your physical situation:  you’re nauseated (You might barf.  Pretty sure you’re gonna barf,) the brain-melting headache is still there, and, inexplicably, your whole self is bloated.  Like, you are so puffy that you can see your own face without looking in a mirror.

8.  Try to think of something you could eat that is not revolting.  Give up and feebly sip orange juice until your kid is done with his breakfast.  Eat 1/8 of a pancake and the squishy part of the banana.  Gag.

9.  Spend the rest of the day following your children around, hoping that they’ll fall asleep.  Periodically lock eyes with your spouse with a look that says, “WHY.  WHY DID WE DRINK SO MUCH.  WE ARE VERY STUPID.”  Put the kids to bed at like 6:45.  Tell them that it is 8:30.  It’s fine.  They can’t tell time and sleep is very good for children. 

10.  Wake up the next day.  Notice that you are still nauseated and that the whole see-your-face-without-a-mirror situation is still going on.  Decide that what you need is exercise.  Yes!  You will go to the gym!  You will flush out the toxins!  Fitness will save you!

11.  Get about 7 lunges into your Group Exercise Lungey Class and realize that this will not go well.  Make Baby Chocolate Lab faces at the instructor in hopes that she will take pity on you and tell you to go take a nap.  She does not do this.  You hate her.

12.  Finally.  Finally after two days and three naps and a lungey class and 14 refills of your water bottle and those deep breathing exercises you learned in yoga and copious amounts of bad-word-saying, you feel better.  The hangover has released its grip on your soul and you can once again function properly in your grownup adult life. 

13.  Think about swearing off that one dive bar forever and ever but quickly decide against it because, let’s face it, that dive bar is fun.  It has karaoke and a bartender with a completely unironic Joe Dirt mullet and it smells exactly like a dive bar ought to.  But you will do this one thing, because you are 38 and not 28: when Joe Dirt Mullet Man offers you a FREE WELL DRINK token because he saw you drinking a gin and soda, you will politely decline.  You will ask him for the Tanqueray (or whatever the good gin is, you don’t really know) because you are a grownup and that’s what grownups do.

Do Not Mess With My Rainbow Boys

I’m in the Chicken Pie Shop, I’m in the grocery, I’m waiting to get shots for my boys and this is how it goes (No joke.  It goes like this all the time.):

Uninformed Human: Your boys!  They all look so different!  Are they brothers?!?

Me [inwardly rolling eyes and sighing]: Yes.

Uninformed Human: Well, are they all yours?!?

Me [again, sighing]:  Yes.

Uninformed Human: Okay but do they all have the same dad?!?

Me [dejectedly hanging my head at the moron-ness of a great deal of humans who live in society today]:  Yes.

This is for the server at the Chicken Pie Shop and for the checkout dude at the grocery and for the nurse (even though she should know wayyyy better) at the clinic where I took my boys for their flu shots:

I have some things to tell you that will maybe enlighten your tiny little minds, then I have some questions.  First, the enlightenment:  For quite some time now in our country and, you know, on the entire planet, people of different ethnicities have been having babies together.  My husband’s mother is from the Philippines and he’s half Asian (whatever that means) and he has dark hair and gorgeous olive skin.  My ancestors are from the cold parts of Europe where everyone has blonde hair and blue eyes and broad shoulders.  And guess what!  We’re totally allowed to get married and make babies!  We don’t have to be even remotely the same color and we’re totally allowed to do that! (!!!)

What that means for you, tiny-minded people, (and I know this might be tricky for you to comprehend, but please just try) is that my children do not all look the same.  Oliver has dark hair and the aforementioned gorgeous olive skin of his daddy.  Hudson is blonde with skin so pale it glows and his eyes are icy blue.  Grady is a caramel boy, with hair, eyes, and skin that are all the same delicious golden hue.  They are my rainbow boys.  The fact that they all look so different is beautiful to me because my husband and I made them and we are different and I think that’s really cool.

And now we will go back to the questions.  I want you to really think about them, O Chicken Pie Shop/grocery store/nurse people, ye of the miniscule brains, because  they will maybe change the way you behave the next time you encounter a family like mine.  (And you will.  We are everywhere.  Get used to it.)  I will space them out and put little stars next to them so you can take your time and really think.  Please.  Please, think.

*How do you think my dark-haired boy feels when people gawk and tell him he doesn’t look like his blonde brothers for the forty-third time?  Remember, he’s eleven.  How might an eleven-year-old boy feel about that? 

*And while we’re discussing feelings, let’s talk about how I feel when you ask if all the children to whom I gave birth and sacrificed a career and a huge amount of sleep and sanity to raise are all actually mine?  If you must know, it only hurts my feelings the tiniest little bit.  Your questions mostly have the effect of being suuupper annoying.  I’m trying to raise a semi-large herd of boys here.  It’s REALLY hard. I do not have the time or patience to answer your blatantly nosy and obnoxious questions. 

*I wonder if you’ve ever thought about how truly ignorant you appear to be when you ask your Uninformed Human Questions?  I mean I’m sure you’re really nice and everything, but when you ogle my children and your eyes glaze over in your feeble attempts to understand basic genetics, you do not look like you’re operating with a full set of hamsters in your wheel. 

*This last question is the Most Important One, the one I want you to consider and then consider again:  What if all of these boys weren’t technically mine?  What if one or all of them were adopted?  What if one of them was a foster kid who I just rescued from a gawd-knows-what-kind-of-horrific life?  I’ll tell you what.  That one little boy would feel your words like nasty little knives, stabbing him in the parts of his heart that were already broken.  

Chicken Pie Shop/grocery/nurse people, I sure hope this makes a difference.  I hope you remember these questions the next time you see my rainbow boys (or anybody else’s rainbow babies) out in public. In fact, maybe print this out and laminate it and memorize it so that next time, instead of asking your usual Uninformed Human Questions, you might say this to yourself, “Oh look.  There’s a family.  They don’t look like each other but they sure are beautiful.  That is one beautiful family.”

*Post Script:  I’m aware that my tone is a tad aggressive in this piece and that I have done some name-calling.  Also I am aware that name-calling isn’t the best manners, but guess what:  people are messing with me and with my lovely children and I’m super tired of it.  If you don’t want to be called tiny-minded, don’t have a tiny mind.  Expand that brain of yours.  It feels good.

All My Tiny Pieces

At 10:30 in the morning on a Wednesday, a drunk old man walked into my work.  This isn’t entirely uncommon because I work in a local market which is attached to a pub.  He had a PBR in his hand and he smelled like this wasn’t his first drink of the day.  I greeted him with a smile, introduced myself, and went about my business. (Hanging heart-shaped crackers from twigs in the front window display, in case you were wondering.  I have a rilly fun job.) 

PBR examined a few t-shirts, stumbled around a little, then walked back to the pub.  Then he came back to the market to ask me my name again.  Then he came back to tell me his name and that he liked my necklace and he liked me.  Then, he followed me with his eyes every time I walked through the pub on my way to the supply room.  I kept my gaze neutral, focused on the back door, pretending I couldn’t see him.  Then he followed me back into the market to stand just the tiniest bit too close to me and to ask if I was mad at him. I smiled and replied, “I’m working right now.  I won’t be able to chat.”  He stumble-stomped back to the pub and that was the last I saw of him.

As I walked to my car after work, I was on edge.  My heart was racing just a little bit and I felt agitated.  I love my work and I’m usually happy and peaceful when I leave, so these feelings were baffling.  Then I realized.  PBR McStinkyshirt had done this to me. 

Even though I was working, even though I was clearly about 40 years younger than him, even though I was certainly not displaying any feelings toward him other than employee-like hospitality, this man decided that none of those things mattered.  He decided that his interest in me entitled him to interrupt my work and aim his creepiness at me, whether I wanted it or not. 

I am still shaken and annoyed (mostly annoyed because ewww, you nasty man, you really messed up what was supposed to be a fun morning at work) when I think about this day. I am very, very (very!) tired of men and their ogling.  I am tired of stares that last way longer than they need to.  I am tired of words that make my stomach knot up, of men standing closer than they should, of having to keep my eyes straight ahead so I don’t appear to be inviting attention.

There are some charming humans who will say that the attention from these men is harmless (he was just looking!) or that it’s because of the way I was dressed (maybe I was asking for it) or that it’s because of the way that I look (you have to get used to that, Katie, it’s just because you’re pretty) but all of that is, as the French say, le bullshit.  The implication is that it’s not a man’s fault when he does oglethings, that his hormones or a little pointy-eared devil on his shoulder or Rambo make him incapable of behaving in a civilized manner.  Women are supposed to be cool with all kinds of unwanted attention because the men just can’t help themselves.  They’re only men and besides, it’s all in good fun.

Guess what, guys.  It’s not fun and it’s not good.  Every time your eyes rest on a woman for more than a few seconds, you’ve gone too far.  You’ve made her uncomfortable because you’ve barged your way into her life uninvited.  Every time you hoot and holler on the street because you like the way she walks, or speed up in your car to get a better look, or do the sleazy “Goooood morning,” as you pass her in the hallway and stare at her chest, you’re forcing a little bit of yourself onto her without her permission and when it’s over, you take a little bit of her away with you. 

If I had a large microphone or was Oprah, I’d yell this loudly, but I don’t and I’m not, so read carefully.  All men everywhere: stop trying to take pieces of women away from themselves.  Women are human and they’re whole and those pieces aren’t for you.  And if you’re one of the men who never does these things, that’s great, good job.  Do me a favor, though, when you see a dude doing an (even very tiny) oglething, give him a nudge and say, “Knock it off, man.  That’s a human being over there.”

My Phone and I, We Go Way Back

I was pregnant with our third son in October of 2009. Like, really really pregnant. The kind of pregnant where strangers holler at you from across parking lots, "OHMAHGAHD look how big your belly is! What do you have in there, triplets?!?!". I didn't mind, though, because, in addition to being large and sweaty and beluga-y, I was thrilled to be pregnant.

The year before, I had two miscarriages. They ripped me apart and left me broken, bleak, empty. People told me I would feel better when I finally got pregnant again and they were right; that little fellow in my belly was helping to fill the empty places the other babies left behind.

Because I was all blissed out about being pregnant again and because of a genetic (not my fault!) propensity toward oversharing and because I had an iPhone, I facebooked that pregnancy like no pregnancy had been facebooked before. There were happy "we just felt the first kick!" posts, there were innumerable photos of the belly, both cute and hideous, there was a lot of complaining. There was even one about nipples.

And then? Then, four days before my due date, my phone died. It just. Stopped. Working. And worse yet, the Fresno Apple store was being remodeled, so I couldn't just walk in and get a new phone. On a land line, I called my husband and yelled, "I CANNOT HAVE THIS BABY WITHOUT A PHONE!". He guffawed, but I wasn't messing around; in my puffy, milkshake-addled state, I truly could not imagine going into labor and not being able to text all my friends, to post that first newborn photograph, to share it, all of it.

(This, by the by, is when I realized it: I could not live without my phone. In the few months that I'd had an iPhone, I had forgotten all my old ways of staying connected with my people. The phone gave me all sorts of new ways and I LIKED THEM.)

So, in a burst of genius that can only be attributed to being flooded with all of the hormones, I called my sister-in-law in Sacramento (that's three hours away, mind you) and convinced her that waiting hours in her Apple store for my new phone, then waiting another 40 minutes or so to overnight it to me was a supergreat plan. She executed the plan flawlessly and the next afternoon, I had a phone. I was complete again.

Two days later, my water broke. I sent texts to all my friends on the way to the hospital. I called my mom and my cousin, who have been by my side as each of our boys came into the world. My husband took gorgeous photos of the baby and me minutes after he was born and minutes later, I shared them on Facebook.

People say that smart phones pull us apart, take away our connectedness, but there are times when the opposite happens. Before my handy dandy little phone came along, there would have been a few phone calls to the hospital, a few visitors offering congratulations and love. Instead, everyone I love all over the country was (almost) right there with me, cheering me on, sending the good juju, and sharing in my joy. So yeah, I'm the lady with her phone always in her hand. I'm the lady who facebooked her labor. I'm the lady who wouldn't have it any other way.