pippa said

pippa has been neglecting her blog

May 3, 2008 – 6:19 pm

It seems like the longer I’m blogging for money, the harder it is to muster up something for this blog that isn’t depressing or whiny. I’m frustrated with work, frustrated about money, and hate just venting here.

It amazes me how in seemingly every industry I’ve ever been in, adults seem to recreate high school all over again. The shot at popularity may change, with the losers from high school getting top seed in the grown-up recreation, but it’s happened everywhere that I’ve worked. And much like their teenaged counterparts, it seems like the grown-ups like to maintain their status by exclusion and out-and-out rudeness I wouldn’t tolerate from my four-year-old.

I’m sure that a lot of my bitterness right now has to do with the fact that I thought overall the conference last week went really well. Best of all (for me) I had a recruiter approach me about a job. This wasn’t just any job, mind you, but one that I really thought would be the perfect fit for my virtual menagerie of skills and work experience. The recruiter seemed really excited. I got really excited. And then didn’t hear a thing once I got back.

I’m starting to feel like I’m never going to get anywhere. I’m tired of panicking every time I’m waiting to get paid, living paycheck to paycheck, and trying to find one more place to cut back. Maybe I just need to give up and find a job with a salary where I’m not trying to fit it in around everything else.

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pippa will never live on the left coast

April 23, 2008 – 12:58 am

I’m in San Francisco for work.

I hate it.

For years, friends and family who have lived here have told me I would love it here being the hippy that I am. I expected to at least like it.

I don’t.

All the “funky” and “cool” is really a homogenized amalgam of what someone thinks is cool. The hotel is off Mission and it’s homeless people and pigeons and boarded-up bodegas and donut shops. What IS it with these people and donuts? 800 different donut shops but more Starbucks than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life.

Everyone is the same in their “funkiness” with messenger bags and chic hair and those eclectic glasses. No one stands out, other than the homeless people I know I can’t help. On my way back to the hotel from the conference center, I stepped over (not passed, mind, STEPPED OVER) three homeless people sleeping under blankets on the sidewalk. It’s almost to the level of Toronto, which I consider as the worst homeless problem I’ve ever seen.

Here, however, you are stepping over these unfortunate souls as you glance over to the street and see Mercedes and BMW and limos. The status symbols are the cars and the latest gadgetry. Even in the sorrier parts of town, bus stops have huge ads for the MacBook Air.

And the people! There is a cult of pseudo-celebrity here that rivals that of Los Angeles. Tech is king here, and people act like they are “someone” if they are relatively famous in the insulated community of Silicon Valley. Prima donna is the M.O. for many of them, and rude behavior is part of it, whether it’s in dismissing you as not being worth their notice when you meet and greet at the conference or get elbowed for the 85th time as some poser takes his smart phone out of his pocket YET AGAIN only to repeat the process of removing it, checking his messages, and returning it less than 15 seconds later.

So no, I will never move here to the Valley. I do not like it, Sam I Am. I do not like city San Fran.

I can’t wait to get home.

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pippa is starring in plague 2: the damn schools

April 3, 2008 – 8:50 am

Nothing makes me angrier than the kids coming home sick from school. I hate that our society has created this monstrosity, where parents who work can’t keep sick kids home because they don’t have enough paid leave time to let kids get well. As a result, I sent kids back to school who were at a low point on the immunity scale after our recent bout with the plague, and henceforth, they have come home with a riproaring cold that is leaving snot and tissues all over my house.

For those of you still homeschooling, consider yourselves lucky, although we had a couple in groups I was in who thought nothing of bringing a sick younger child along so older child didn’t miss an activity. I love that I have a flexible job working from home where I can keep the kids home and let their little bodies recover.

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pippa has a hole in her window

March 30, 2008 – 9:36 pm

Since I have been near death, I have not been Mother of the Year. Some days literally began with me half-crawling to the kitchen, getting the children a box of cereal off the top of the refrigerator, and handing it over. Breakfast is served!

In my defense, this flu is killer, and I have attempted to merely keep the children alive and uninjured.

At some point, I heard “Mommy the window is broken” but since we have double-pane windows and one of the outer panes has had a crack since we bought the house, I ignored it. Until today, when I found a BASEBALL-SIZED HOLE IN MY FRONT FREAKING WINDOW.

Various stories solicited from the children have involved the familiar phases “Not me,” “wasn’t there,” and “he did it,” but no culprit has been found. And now I have to figure out how the hell to get my house in enough order to have someone come in and replace the glass.

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pippa on spitzer

March 10, 2008 – 2:37 pm

Grendel and I had the following exchange this afternoon:

3:22:42 PM pippa: HOW is his wife not THROTTLING him as she stands next to him?
3:22:50 PM pippa: I would be slamming your fucking head into the podium
3:24:52 PM grendel: LOL I thought you didn’t care if I found a fuck-buddy?
3:25:05 PM pippa: Dude… cuckolding me in the national press?
3:25:16 PM pippa: WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM
3:25:31 PM grendel: I thought cuckold only referred to the woman cheating?
3:25:38 PM pippa: I disagree
3:25:42 PM pippa: WHAM WHAM WAHM WAHM
3:25:46 PM grendel: and it’s not like he slept with a reporter on TV
3:25:56 PM pippa: WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM
3:26:11 PM grendel: I think he was paying $5500 / hour for the discretion
3:26:16 PM pippa: Oh look! The American flag is behind me! I will DRIVE IT INTO YOUR LYING, CHEATING HEART
3:26:33 PM pippa: IT HAS A NICE POINTY END HERE!
3:26:51 PM grendel: So to get the groundrules down… it’s ok as long as it’s not in the press?
3:27:17 PM pippa: POINTY! And BLOOD will show up nice and Jackie Kennedy like on my teal suit.
3:27:19 PM pippa: WHAM!

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pippa apparently needs to help the general public yet again

February 26, 2008 – 12:35 pm

Leslie sent me this link which was a huge DUH for me but is apparently surprising to others. Of COURSE for the majority of people, antidepressants work no better than a placebo, because the majority of people don’t need an antidepressant. DUH. We have become a society looking for the quick fix. Sad over grandma kicking the bucket? Ask for a prescription. Boyfriend dumped you? Ask for a prescription. Got a run in your last pair of Spanx? Ask for a prescription.

When I first started on meds, it was mortifying. The only people I’d run into at shrink offices and clinics were people who were batshit insane. And I am sure they looked at me and thought the same thing. But it’s suddenly become hip to be on antidepressants, “edgy” to be a self-mutilator. Back in my day, Ms. Amy Winehouse, we wore long pants, long-sleeved shirts, and HIDE that kind of thing.

Now, lest I get too soapbox-y here, I’d like to present the

Top 10 Signs You Can Use a Placebo Instead of an Antidepressant

1. If the first antidepressant you try works great? Odds are you could use a placebo.

2. If you never seem to have to increase your dose over time? Odds are you could use a placebo.

3. If you have never spent time when you were supposed to be downstairs at a party, but were instead hiding under the hosts’ bed sobbing? Odds are you could use a placebo.

4. If you aren’t intimately acquainted with a psych check-in, complete with four-points and having them take your personal effects, including your bra, because you might harm yourself? Odds are you could use a placebo.

5. If you’ve only ever been to a hoity-toity shrink’s office, or worse yet, only your regular doctor for your antidepressants? Odds are you could use a placebo.

6. If you haven’t had friends and family making phone calls whispering about you followed by an intervention begging you to get psychiatric help? Odds are you could use a placebo.

7. If you’ve never fired a shrink because they were crazier than you? Actually, if you’ve only been to one shrink (probably of the hoity-toity variety… see #5)? Odds are you could use a placebo.

8. If your diagnosis on Axis I looks like this? “Axis I 296.21 Major Depressive Disorder , Single Episode” Odds are you could use a placebo.

9. If you don’t know what I said in #8? Odds are you could use a placebo.

10. If you and all your friends compare your antidepressants? Odds are you could use a placebo.

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pippa didn’t do awards season

February 24, 2008 – 9:49 pm

This is the first time in a while that Dr. Dave and I didn’t do award pics. My fault, really. I’m just too tired.

I’ve been sick since November. NOVEMBER. I’ve lost 1/4 of my total body weight since then without even trying. Some days it’s all I can do to get out of bed, haul myself to the couch, and just make sure the kids don’t burn the house down.

I’m supposed to get blood work done and I haven’t. I’m dragging my heels, something totally not like me. I can do blood draws all day long. It’s that for once, I don’t want to know. Hopefully, it’s no big deal, right? But if it is, our insurance sucks ass. I’m still trying to find money in the couch to pay for Bug’s scope last fall. I can’t afford another one, and they are threatening two depending on the blood test results.

But I’m so tired of being sick. G’s parents got us a membership to the Y for Christmas and I haven’t even been there. Most days walking up and down the stairs is more than I feel capable of doing. Thank god for that new Gatorade drink that’s only 25 calories; I live on it since it isn’t stuffed with sugar, which only makes me sicker.

Anyway, that’s my big whining excuse for why I’m not posting very often right now. Most days I’d sound exactly like this post and it would just be too damn depressing.

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pippa can’t shut her gaping piehole…

February 18, 2008 – 10:24 am

… Molly Ringwald is 40 today.

40.

I realize that time and tide wait for no man, but really. Molly Ringwald is 40? How could this HAPPEN???

I was talking to a cashier at Target the other day. Bug initiated the conversation, asking about her piercings (nose and that odd little one in the dent in your chin under your lip), and we were discussing her best friend who works at the photo counter, who has a myriad of piercings Beanie loves. Bug asked why I don’t pierce anything else and I told him if I was 15 years younger, I would. And then the girl told me that she’s dragged her mom to get more piercings with her, and a new tat.

Her mom.

How did I get to be THIS OLD? Did this cashier not realize I was a club kid? That the whole club culture and weird piercings and odd hair colors were pioneered by MY generation? That inside my head, I’m still the 16-year-old kid with the crazy hair and the eyeshadow up to my hair line trying to figure out what to pierce next? That back in the day the mall jewelry stores not only didn’t SELL body jewelry, but wouldn’t even pierce your EARS above the LOBE???

I’m in denial. I know I am. But I’m not ready for my teen movie idols to be turning 40. I’m SO not ready.

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pippa is so very sick

February 17, 2008 – 4:27 am

Ugh.

Apparently, I get the flu every three years whether I get the vaccine or not. So in addition to my coughing/hacking/fever/snuffling/vomiting from all the aforementioned, I have the rest of my mess.

I’m one of those people who tends to pick up everything the kids bring home and get it 10x worse. Used to this little phenomenon, I’ve learned to just suffer (not always silently) and keep on going. Problem is, eventually you get something that doesn’t go away, which is where I’m at now. I’ve been “sick” since before Thanksgiving. Sick enough that I had to actually buy new clothes because things are falling off me. And while I certainly NEEDED to lose weight after the accumulation of four pregnancies, I’d much prefer to do so by going to the gym, you know?

Now, when something like the flu comes tearing through my house, it lays me OUT. I’ve literally left my bed for a total of three hours in three days. And that was to sit in a recliner in the living room. I need a Florence Nightingale.

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