All Or Nothing

Like That Annoying Skinny Girl, Complaining That Her Boobs Are Too Big

So, my parents came over to the house the other day, without any warning.  They also brought some friends of theirs, friends from Lubbock, Texas, friends I had not seen in quite some time. 

This was really great, especially since at the time of their arrival (did I mention it was unsolicited?) I was standing on the back porch, covered in paint and caulk (oh yes, the caulking continues) and my house was a complete disaster.

I am not one of those people who will walk you through her spotless home, swabbing at dust mites floating through the sunbeams, brushing imaginary dirt off of a tabletop and straightening cushions, all the while apologizing for how the house is "such a mess!".  No, if my house is clean, and you happen to drop in I will probably say something like "whoa, what luck!  My house is clean!  Want a drink?"  and then we'll get out some wine and have a merry time telling stories or something.  I'm not going to pseudo-apologize for my pseudo-mess.

So, when I say my house was a disaster, well, I mean it.  There were dirty dishes piled in the sink, the wood floors looked more like floored woods, what with the pine needles and dirt scattered about, and I don't know if you've been keeping count, but since we added Lydah to the mix, we now have three animals running around Casa deCarter.  And they all shed.  A lot. 

A brand new bag of puppy food graced our dining room table; a fitting centerpiece to the leash, three piles of unopened mail, and halfway-unpacked suitcase all seated in various dining room chairs.  Someone with distinct paw prints had tracked white paint all through the living room, and the study was completely covered in newspaper.  No, we aren't paper training the dog.  I don't know why the newspaper was strewn around in such a manner.  Bad sports scores?  Someone threw up?  Your guess is as good as mine. 

No fewer than 18 single and unmatched shoes lurked in corners, between couch cushions, and, inexplicably, on top of the kitchen island.  Porch plans and pencils and pads of graph paper lay haphazardly in a pile mixed with the remnants of an old photography project I had been working on, "project" meaning "putting all those old photos in an actual album".

The house was such a mess, really, that it was hopeless to pretend otherwise.  Times like those, you just have to grin and announce to everyone that, well, we just got a puppy, and our house is a wreck!  Oh well, at least you know we live here!  I mean, it's lived in!  I mean, you know, we're real.  Right? 

It was excruciatingly humiliating.  But there was nothing I could do about it, short of locking them out of my home, barricading the door, and telling them NO, it's too messy, I just COULDN'T.  And that never works at all, because inevitably at that point everyone starts telling you how it couldn't possibly be that bad, and how they don't care, and how their house is messy, too!  All the while you're thinking, oh believe me, it can be that bad, it is that bad, and if your house has ever looked this way then believe me, you did not let people inside.  And then they give you a funny side hug, and say, pshaw, we're coming in, we came to see YOU, after all!  And then everyone comes inside and dies a slow and painful death.  Also, no one has anything to drink to assuage their dying, because all the cups are dirty, in the sink.  Sorry!

I was all prepared to read my mom the riot act after they left.  In fact, as everyone toured the house, room to room, and I descended into subsequent levels of hell, I was planning my diatribe.  How dare you?  I would say.  Don't you have any manners?  Any common decency?  I don't care if you tried to call my cell phone and the house phone and Cody's phone and no one answered (they did, and we didn't) - you should know better!  You carried me for nine months and then lived with me for nearly 20 years.  You know I'm a disgusting slob!

But once again, my mother bested me.  On their way out, as she was getting into the passenger's side of the car, she let loose with this gem: "Oh Elise, by the way - we can't use our timeshare week this year, so if you and Cody want a vacation sometime this summer, it's yours."

Game, set, match, MOM.

So, where should we go?

Moisture-Starved And Crazier Than Ever

Lydah (the dog) is doing fabulously.  The crate-training works like a charm and she no longer yips through the night.  Now she busies herself finding the ONE thing left on the floor that she's not supposed to chew, and, well.  Chews it.  I think we got ourselves one special dog, because her extrasensory perception about what we DON'T want her to do is pretty amazing.

What?  I can't chew the desk either?  This place is crazy with the rules.

Anyway, on to other subjects.  We're building a screen porch on the back of our house.  Want to see it, halfway done?  Ok!  I'm happy to oblige.

That's what we've got done so far.  And by "we", I mean "Cody".  And by "got done" I mean "I'm from East Texas, y'aaaaal".  All I've done is help hold some boards and caulk.  Oh, caulking.  It might very well be the bane of my existence.  When we built the house, almost all the caulking duties fell to me.  I'm not sure if it's because everyone just really hates me, or because I am woefully inadequate in doing...well...anything else.  But either way, I had to caulk EVERYTHING.  Do you know how much caulk is in your current residence?  Do you know how many tedious, excruciating man-hours it takes to GET that much caulk in your current residence?  I DO.

So, the screen porch.  It falls to me to get the thing caulked.  Actually, the day before, I was instructed to make a run to Lowe's and buy the caulk, along with some other items we were running short on.  This is never a good plan, sending me to Lowe's with a really non-specific instruction such as "buy some caulk.  Make sure it's weatherproof".  Have you been to Lowe's and looked at the caulk aisle?  The possibilities are endless.

After perusing the caulk aisle for, I don't know, 10 hours?  It felt like it - I found some polyurethane caulk.  It was in the Specialty Caulk section, and spoke to me in large red print, guaranteeing me that it would be weatherproof, waterproof, stain-proof, tear-proof, crack-proof - basically, the Most Indestructible Caulk Available.  I figured there couldn't be anything better (and I am nothing if not a Maximizer), so I bought it.

The next day, after my caulk purchase had been sufficiently praised (read: Cody looked at it and said Geez, I guess we won't have to worry about water coming in through the cracks....of the SCREEN PORCH), I set forth to caulk.  I got the caulking gun, prepared myself emotionally as best I could, and squeezed the trigger of the gun.  Nothing.  Maybe I didn't sufficiently poke through the plastic tip, I thought.  A search for longer and pointier things ensued.  I found an old sprinkler flag - you know, those extraordinarily dangerous objects you use to mark where your sprinkler heads are?  In case you've never seen one of these beauties, they consist of a little 3"x4" plastic flag attached to a 2' long sharp metal stick.  It could certainly, as we've all been warned about, poke your eye out.  Anyway.

The sprinkler flag worked beautifully.  It came out covered with Indestructible Caulk, and I walked back out to the porch.  I pulled the trigger again, and NOTHING came out.  "Cody, I think the gun's broken," I said.  "Here, why don't you try it."  This is famous Elise Speak for I don't really have that much interest in this project and on top of that it has presented me with a modicum of difficulty.  Why don't I quit and you do it instead.  Unfortunately, the longer Cody knows me the less susceptible he is to this tactic.  This time was no exception, and all he did was grab the gun from me, pull the trigger, and hand it back to me as shiny white caulk came curling from the tip, saying "Huh, looks fine to me.  Here ya go!". 

Unhappy with this result, I mustered my strength and tried again.  This time I pulled the trigger of the caulking gun as hard as I could, and to my dismay, a tiny, minuscule bit of caulk squeezed out.  As I sat back on my heels and surveyed an entire porch's worth of caulking, I began to realize just how fun this project was really going to be.  I also had my secretary cancel everything I had on tap for the next 6-8 weeks.

"This caulk is REALLY hard to squeeze," I informed Cody.  "I'm not sure what the problem is, but this is going to take FOREVER."

"I think it's because you got that crazy super caulk," Cody replied.  "Why did you get that crap?  It's like polyurethane or something.  Wasn't there anything different?"

Wasn't there anything different indeed.  Only about 100 different options, and of course I had to find, with my eagle eye of doom, the one kind that was not only Indestructible, but also Impossible To Work With.  Why don't they put THAT on the tube?  In big red print?

Well, it was too late for woebegone revelations at that point.  I had to soldier on.  Two hours later, my hands were 100% covered in polyurethane caulk, about half of the porch was weatherproofed, waterproofed, stain-proofed, etc., etc., ad nauseam, and I was going insane.  You might (and with good reason) think I was losing my mind because of the sheer monotony, the insipid tediousness of the caulking project.  I admit, the amount of actual caulking accomplished in the two hours I had been working was discouraging, at best.  But that is not why I was, in effect, coming unhinged.  No, that was because my hands were dry.

Did you get that?  My hands were dry.

It is a little-known fact about me that I go absolutely crazy if my hands aren't really, really moisturized, like, ALL THE TIME.  When we were building the house, and would spend hours and hours on the worksite dealing with sawdust, and grout, and concrete mix, and bricks, and all sorts of other substances that are, as a rule, incredibly DRY, I would have to have a large bottle of lotion on hand at all times.  Otherwise I would slowly spiral downward, out of control, and into a land where licking and spitting upon my own hands seemed a welcome respite.  No one wants to see me there, trust me.  So by the end of the house project, there were probably no short of 12 bottles of lotion, all dispersed strategically through the house, ready at the moment for me to dash inside, panicking, and pump the sweet, sweet moisture onto my hands.  I'm like a really sick crack addict, only with Jergens® Extra Dry®.

Some days I would get really moisture-obsessed, and would spread the most Extreme Lotion Ever, the kind that is made for like, Eskimos and People Afflicted with Cracked and Bleeding Skin, all over my hands and wrists, slap on some work gloves, and happily let my skin marinate all day long.   I cannot stand chalk, or chalkboards, or any kind of natural stone or brick that has any kind of dry and dusty feel.  I can't handle lumber, or concrete, or dirt or sand....ugh, even writing about these things is making my hands feel like they are curling up into shriveled claws and dying.

But you built a house, you say.  You live in the world, you point out, where things like dirt and chalkboards exist.  And to that I say, yes, you're right.  You're absolutely right.  And I have found ways to co-exist with these awful substances, these terrible blights on humanity.  I carry at least one bottle or tube of lotion with me at all times.  Need hand lotion with SPF?  I've got you covered.  A little aloe-vera for that sunburn?  Let me get my purse! 

However (and back to the original story), the polyurethane weatherproof waterproof blah blah caulk that was covering my hands was not allowing ANY moisture through.  It had promised me, back in the Specialty Caulks section at Lowe's, that it wouldn't break ranks for water in any form and it wasn't about to lose face now just to pander to my obsessive compulsiveness.  I ended up pouring about 2/3 of a can of paint thinner all over my hands in quick, successive sessions, scrubbing my skin with a wire-tipped brush, and screaming for mercy, for someone, please, to have mercy on my tortured soul.

The caulk is gone, but I think I lost a little bit of myself along with it.

Yet Another Reason Why A Baby Is Nowhere In The Foreseeable Future

Meet the newest member of the family:

Six-week old German Shepherd puppy, name is Lydah, and she is like the Queen Eminent of Barking and Yipping Really Loud All Night Long.

So, I'm kind of a zombie right now.  In fact, every time I type "now", I end up typing "nit", which, while it seems like a great word and everything, and is fun to say (NIT!  Try it!) isn't really what I mean at all.

I need puppy training tips.  Especially on getting them to sleep through the night and not like, ruining-them-forever kind of tips.  There are, umm, I don't know - MILLIONS of tips for doing these things, all over the Internet and in books.  Hundreds, and hundreds of books.  Did you know that?  "Don't ruin your puppy," they all proclaim, "it's harder than you think!"   "You're stupid," they shout, "and likely not to handle this well!"

But she's just so dadgum cute. 

Still, help?  Seriously.

Sephora Good Cause

I'm working on the wedding recap posts, but in the meantime, I've got a question that desperately needs answering.

I received one of these beauties:

And I need you to tell me what to spend it on!  What's your favorite Sephora product - something I shouldn't be living without?

The Muse

Have you ever noticed that some people write so honestly?  So transparently?  Not that I endeavor to fill this website with lies, but the amount of depth I go into in regards to my personal trauma and victory is....well.  Non-existent?  Or at least very, very veiled.

I've spent some time recently thinking about people who come in and out of our lives.  I don't know what to call these people.  Are they friends?  It depends on your definition of "friend".  If a friend to you is someone who, for a season, plays a role in the movie of your life, then yes, these people are friends.  If a friend to you is a constant, someone who remains and will be there for you regardless of age, location, time spent apart - well, then you can't really call the intermittent relationships friendships at all.  To me, they are more like ghosts.  Sometimes they are real, so real you can feel their cold, misty fingers on your face, and then poof.  They're gone.

I've always been a picky friend.  I choose people I like quickly and without much grace or mercy, and then I remain fiercely loyal to that person for as long as humanly possible.  The ones I have deemed latch-worthy have two choices:  embrace my love and devotion for what it is, or pry me off with a crowbar.  Conversely, if someone doesn't immediately strike me as a kindred spirit, I have a hard time wanting to spend any additional time with them.  Why waste my time and theirs?  The concept of "getting to know" people hasn't ever really struck much of a chord with me, although the fact that it hasn't is hypocrisy at its greatest.  I am hard to get to know.  How many people I put off daily, on complete accident, is a number probably best left undiscovered.

One result of such all-or-nothing friendship standards is that I tend to have amplified feelings towards others.  A simple email or small, kind gesture means the world to me, even if the person making the effort would do the same for anyone.  And in the same way, when someone I consider to be a Friend morphs into a Ghost, I tend to take it very personally.  I've had two Friends turn into Ghosts, and both experiences were so difficult for me that I rank them among the Worst Things Ever.  And that list includes getting lied to in a major business deal, going through a massive lawsuit, and being so broke I considered Taco Bell a gourmet treat.

Recently, I thought another Friend had gone all Ghost-like on me.  And for some reason, I remained detached enough to track my emotional response. 
I remember feeling anxious, you know, like you might when a thunderstorm is approaching.  It still feels nice and calm outside, but when you take a deep breath you can smell the rain.  The hair stands up on your arms because of the electricity in the air.  You know something's coming.  And I knew this was coming. 
After it came, the inevitable If-They-Don't-Return-THIS-Call-Then-I'm-Not-Calling-Again non-call, I felt
like a sack of cement had been dropped on my chest.  Heavy.  Lethargic.  What was I looking forward to? I wondered.  What is there to look forward to?
Next up was anger.  It's nearly always easier to blame someone else rather than yourself, right?  Why should I feel rejected and disappointed when it's clear that the Friend is obviously a coward, unable to deliver a simple message of dismissal and instead choosing to hide in a corner of desertion?  I hate people like that.
Pretty quickly, that hate turned directly inward.  What is wrong with me?  What is it about me that is so, apparently, undesirable?  Maybe everyone secretly hates me.  Maybe all of my Friends are actually Ghosts, just hanging around in some awful spiritly state, waiting for the right time to evaporate.
Then I was just left with residual pain.  Kind of like when you've gone through a particularly terrible night of being violently ill, when you finally fall into a feverish sleep and wake, hours later with nothing but a dull memory of the misery of the night before and an overall sense of weakness.  With all pain, there's eventually a breaking point.

It occurred to me that in the past, I wouldn't have internalized all of those emotions as I felt them.  They would have been expressed, thrown upon whatever unlucky soul happened to be my confidant throughout the experience.  This time I kept it in.  I let myself feel each and every stage, let myself deal with the emotions as they came, and I came out on the other end relatively unscathed.  I'm not sure if this is a result of maturity, or if, after three times, I'm just becoming indifferent.