Heather B. Armstrong - if you google your name, I am reviewing "It Sucked and Then I Cried". It made me Laugh.

Hey hey hey, it's Fat Albert! How are all y'all doing tonight? TGIF like you wouldn't effing believe, my friends. I seriously think it's been the longest week ever - sort of like the week added Shitsday, Repetitiveday, and Tiredday to the 7 day cycle. It's just been incredibly long, so now that the weekend is here, I'm throwing my panties on it's stage. That's a joke - I don't think they'd make panties that would fit me, although I did go to highschool with a guy who has to weigh twice as much as me, and he's now becoming a woman, and so he must be wearing ladies' knickers, I would think. I can't imagine what they'd look like, but that's neither here nor there.
Speaking of transexuals, have I ever said how I just don't get that whole deal? Like, I'm sorry, but you can whittle a penis outta the best silicone that money can buy, and surgically attach it, but honey, if you can't feel the fucking thing, what the hell good is it to be a dude? Like take good old Chas Bono. I have no problem with him or her or wherever he or she is at right now, wanting to dress and act like a man, but without the equipment functioning like it does, well, what's the point? But then again, whatever floats Chas's boat. You know, I say just let go and let love.
Hey, I am reading a really good book right now. It's sort of a funny story. Did I mention here that in the spring I decided to man up and go and pay my 100 dollars of library fines, that I have had sitting there for years and years, and when I did go, they had just implemented a new computer system, and all the old fines were erased?? Well, anyway, it was like Christmas during wartime -- a cheap gift that burned goodness in my heart forever. Anyhoo, so I start using this library card like my first Visa card - I was checking shit out like crazy, much like I was buying shit with my first Visa that I really had no use for. I can remember buying things like a set of martini glasses with black stems for my live-in love (who eventually became my wife, but live-in love sounds so much more European and sophisticated, which we weren't. Indeed, since we shacked up the second we moved out of our parents' houses when we decided to go to the City to go to university, we were like an old married couple, and since we hung out with a couple who lived in our building that I've known one half of since childhood, we spent our weekends watching "Sisters" and other NBC Friday night shows, while i would cook a big pot of borsht or something for us to feast on. Other people our age were puking in bar bathrooms and regretfully sleeping with classmates on the hoods of cars in said bar parking lots, but we were eating Ukrainian cuisine, watching Swoosie Kurtz, and making love in our bed, rather than with gross drunken strangers in parking lots). Whoa, that was a tangent... where was I.... oh yes, the first Visa - well, I'd buy shit like those martini glasses, even though I don't think either of us have ever had a martini, and a poloroid camera, which was a piece of shit and we never used, or a set of halogen lamps that in hindsight could have burned the frigging house down, and on and on. Anyway, like that first Visa, I was checking shit out of the library which wild abandon. And, like some sort of chronic alcoholic or like Priscilla Presley vowing to give up plastic surgery, I too promised never to have a late fee again. Well, as we all know, that's a pile of bullshit. It began easily enough. One day, I was checking out a stack of books, and I grabbed at the last minute this book by Heather B. Armstrong called "It Sucked and Then I Cried" (yes, I know that in true MLA format I should be underlining or italicizing the title, but I am too lazy, so bite me), which, the back of the book said, was by the author of a blog. I grabbed it, because it looked like it was about childbirth and such, and since I have 4 kids, I thought "bring it on, bitch!" (In a good way - I didn't mean that this Armstrong woman was a bitch). Anyway, I signed this book out and whatever, I didn't read it in the end (yes, I know that's a comma splice - leave me the fuck alone, already!). Anyway, I didn't read the book. This was before we took our big, money-sucking trip to Oregon (that ended up extending itself to California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montanta, etc.), and I was more concerned with this fucking book I renewed like 4 frigging times called "Pacific Northwest Road Trips" or something equally stupid. It was a really good book, but written for those hip, childless couples that I guess must take road trips. It listed many things to see in Washington and Oregon, but it was written in a way so as to make a family vacation seem like it was the spawn of the devil or Sarah Palin or something. I got some good info, such as where to find good fruit stands (the "fruit loop" in Oregon, even though that fucking thing set me back an hour and 40 bucks, when I coulda bought cherries for half the fucking price at a roadside stand), but it also told us where to go in case we were looking for a "naughty" bakery, such as the punk rock bakery in Portland where they would throw donuts on erect penises in some sort of competetion each Halloween, and where to skinny dip in natural hot springs. So, I knew I wasn't "cool" enough for that book anymore, what with my 4 kids and all, but I kept renewing the damn book. So, I kept renewing that book, as well as this "It Suck and then I cried" thing. I didn't read the book, but since I kept forgetting to take it back, I just would renew the damn thing.
Then we went on holidays.
Then both books ended up overdue.
Then both books ended up like 2 and a half fucking months overdue.
SO I decided the other night to take both books back, and to man up again and pay my fine and move on with my life. But right before I left for the library (my wife was at dance with my 3 girls - I was taking baby boy on a man date to the library), I get a call from said wife, who told me that girl #1 was all crampy and shit and didn't think she could go to her class, so I said I'd pick her up. Well, the boy and I sat in the car in the back alley for like 20 minutes before she came out of dance and into the car, and since I had this unread book in front of me, I started to leaf though it. WELL. My eyebrows immediately raise when I see the words "Mormon" and "Utah" mentioned. I don't remember if I even mentioned here before, but I have this immense obsession with Mormons, and those who leave the Mormon Church, and with Utah. The Mormon thing, well, that's just fucked up - they believe the CRAZIEST shit. As for Utah, well, being there two summers in a row now, I have to say that the place is like the frigging promised land - it's that frigging beautiful. Seriously, I could talk about it forever. Forest, desert, mountains, lakes, red hills, valleys, canyons, parks, etc. - it's just the most beautiful place on earth. Add to that some really good shopping, and some freaky Mormon shit like the Missionary Mall in Orem, with the big 10 foot blow up Mormon missionary on the roof of said mall, well - it was enough to make me completely understand what it sounds like when doves cry.
So, it was a no-brainer that I would love this book. HOWEVER. However. The book was written by one of us. A blogger. Oh, the range of emotions when you see those words. You see, I think we all get our back up when we see those words on a book jacket. It's like "What the FUCK?!? I blog. I'm funny. I could be published. Fuck that SHIT!!" It was sort of the same reaction I had with the "Julie/Julia" thing. I saw the cover of that book, with that actress who looks like Juliette Lewis without the down syndrome features, and Meryl Streep as an over-acting Julia Child thrusting her ample bossom into the farmer's market, holding a handful of onions or whatever, and immediately, I KNEW I would just HATE that fucking book. I knew it would suck. But then one night, in the city, in Costco, I picked the damn thing up. And saw the mention of the blog. SO I bought it.
And I started to read it.
And I frigging LOVED it. Loved it. It was caustic and spastic and funny in the "I am going to piss myself" way. It had nothing to do with the cutesy cover of the movie actors. Or Actesses. I use the term because I know it pisses people off. ACTRESSES. HAHAHAHHA!!!! SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUPS!
Anyway, instead of returning the two month overdue book, I decided to keep it. I am glad I did.
That shit is funny. Besides the content about being Mormons who left the church (the sort of thing that I love like teenage boys love pornography- I guess ex-Mormons are my own version of 40 year old porn), and the mention of Utah (which seriously is the promised land - fuck me, I'd live there in spite of all those kooky Mormons), the thing was just so... TRUE in terms of pregnancy and childbirth. While my wife, Rachel, unlike poor Heather B. Armstrong, was never sick (other than not being able to stand the new car smell of our car, which made her gag), and who was full of energy and sensuality, and everything awesome, during her pregnancies, I still related to the whole labor thing, and post labor thing. Like Heather B. Armstrong, Rachel got an epidural during her first pregnancy and could not fucking push. Couldn't feel it. They ended up using a vacuum and a forceps and such other gross things, and nobody prepares you for the AFTER thing - the 2nd degree tears that make your hootchie look like hamburger and such. We didn't know! So it was really nice to read that stuff from somebody else. And this Heather B. Armstrong is funny. She really is. And, of course, since she's one of us, we don't like admitting that, but it's true - she's got it. Her blog is something like dooce.com or something. I haven't gone to it yet. But she's funny. And her story is universal. And while parts of it aren't completely my experience - our kids haven't ever really kept us up at night (We just sleep with them and let them nurse until 2 and a 1/2), and while my wife didn't have depression or anything, being the anxiety/panic attack sufferer that I can be, I completely understand this woman's problems. So even though I am not through the book completely (And even though the last bit I read made me confused, since she's always complaining about the kid not sleeping, but in the next breath she says the kid is sleeping 11 hours at 6 months, which, to be honest, none of my kids have ever slept YET), I gotta say, this woman is funnn-yyyy. Read the book. I bet it's even worth the 37 dollars in late fees I will have to pay so I can take my kids back to the library again.
Finally, Canuck readers, wasn't that the BEST fucking football game ever tonight? We rock!
Peace out, babes!