f I were a woman in a polygamist cult, I’d at least lobby for better hair.

10:55 AM me: moving on, what is up with the hair-do's of those women in the polygamy sect?

Brad: i know. hawt!

me: talk about a glamour don't!

Brad: plus they all have the same facial features

10:56 AM that's just how they roll

me: They said today that foster care is trying to keep all the brothers and sisters in the same house...but aren't they all?

Those women scare me.

Brad: you're just jealous because they had a man in their life

me: ouch

still, you wouldn't catch me in one of those dresses!

10:57 AM Brad: yes i would. they would slow you down a lot

they dress like amish. big deal

that's what happens when you make your own clothes

10:58 AM me: no, the Amish have those apron thingys on the front...these are just blech

Brad: in fact, that look is common amongst orthodox christian cults

not illinois amish

me: well, the orthodox Christinan cults need a serious Gay Eye makeover.

Brad: rccist!

er... racist!

me: oh shush

10:59 AM why won't that sect let the men talk?

to the media, I mean

Brad: who said the men can't talk?

oh

i think the men don't want to

me: you never see the dudes talk, only the robot women

11:00 AM Brad: people will be more sympathetic to the mothers. just damage control

i've seen pics of the men

me: are they hot?

11:01 AM Brad: i don't know how to judge that

me: homophobe

11:02 AM Brad: no, i honestly don't know how to judge that

i look at a guy. the gal next to me say, ooh he's hot. i'm all "huh?"

me: really?

11:03 AM ok, make it simple. You are nice looking. Do they resemble you? If so, there ya go.

Brad: people don't look like me. i'm unique

11:04 AM besides, i wouldn't recognize myself walking down the street

me: "Hey, there I am!"

Brad: i recognize people more by their hair than their face

me: but you're weird

Brad: if someone i'm not htat familiar with changes their hairstyle, i won't know who they are

11:05 AM me: ah ha.

I didn't goop up my hair this morning. I washed-and-went.

So it's not sticking up in 20 different directions.

Brad: cool

So She Has an M.D. A Real One. Whoop-Dee-Do.

So She Has an M.D. A Real One. Whoop-Dee-Do.
Current mood: argumentative
Category: Life

Any of my friends will tell you I’m damn good at clinical diagnoses. I can whip through a differential with relative ease, particularly if it’s me. Or Patti. Actually, nine times out of ten, Patti’s actual doctors and nurses confirm what I’ve already deduced as Patti’s hypochondria, or her daughter’s febrile assessments. I’m THAT good, yo.

Most of the time, anyway.

In the TMI department, my urine was really, really dark for a good couple of, er, weeks. And I had lower back pain at the same time, right about where I (and my mom) honestly thought the kidneys might be located anatomically. Best layman’s guess, anyway. After pouring over the side effects of the litany of medications I currently take and ruling out such potential bummers as, for example, cancer, I came to the conclusion that I had a kidney infection.

After dinner at my mom’s house with Luke on Sunday night, my mother encouraged me to have this all checked out (read: confirmed) by my family practitioner on Monday, who coinicdentally, just moved her office next door to that of my mother’s in the hospital professional building nearby (more on that to follow).

I felt kind of crappy back-wise on Monday, so I didn’t go to outpatient rehab from 9-noon, and my appointment with my doctor was set for 1:45 pm. My doctor is a hoot--she’s 100% Polish, always in a huge hurry and generally confused because everyone who works for her seems to be named "Margaret."

One of the Margarets tells me that since they moved offices, they no longer have a bathroom, and I’d need to take my Dixie cup for the urinalysis and find myself a toilet elsewhere. To confuse matters more, I simply said that I’d "go to my Mom’s and be right back," leaving them thinking that I was leaving the hospital to pee at my mother’s house.

Arriving at my mother’s office, she let me in the back door and ushered me to the nearest potty, where I did my business and clutched my cup. "It’s purple!" I exclaimed to my mother. "Your urine?" she gasped. "No, Mom, the walls of Dr. B’s new office." "Whew!"

Eventually, my doctor whizzed into my examining room (figuratively, not literally) and asked me what my problem was. "Where exactly would my kidneys be located?" I asked. "Well, where does it hurt?" she replied.

I pointed down to the small of my back, where pain was radiating on the left of my tailbone.

"Your kidneys are up HERE!" the doctor said with 2 swift blows to my back.

"Ow. You’re wrong." I said.

"Wrong? I’m the DOCTOR."

"So. Why is my urine so dark then?"

After testing the sample with a pH strip, she deduced that at best, while I had no infection, and well-hydrated (from seltzer, not booze, mind you), evidently, I don’t eat. Tell me something new for my $20 co-pay, lady. "You pinched a nerve in your back, Andrea," she said.

Still doubting her credentials, my doctor was forced to pull out a well-utilized anatomy chart of the lower back, which illustrated that my pain was located within the L5 and T10 (or was it the L10 and T5?) regions of my spine. My kidneys were in the clear. I guess.

Her examination continued with me lying on the table and her twisting my left leg in all sorts of directions, each more painful than the next, just for emphasis. I was prescribed Celebrex and some muscle relaxant (yay on the latter!!!) and advised to not run or walk for exercise for a week or so. "You exercise a lot, no?" my doctor asked. "Yes, usually," I answered. "I can tell. But stop for a while." she said.

We got on the topic of my stint in detox, and I told my doctor how I ended up in the psych ward because the substance abuse floor was full. She attributed the influx of mental illness and substance abuse to the Iraqi war. Uh, m’kay.

Not a problem. For now, my sciatic nerve is pinched, I can’t find my heating pad, and I need to eat more.

Oh, the Irony.

Oh, the Irony.
Current mood: calm
Category: Religion and Philosophy

How many stories are there in The Bible?

Lots. Lots and lots. And lots.

Take your pick: there’s the Old Testament, the New Testament, the kooky extra books the Catholics insert...you see my point.

Luke was home with me this past weekend, and had some trouble getting to sleep on Friday night. I’d put him to bed at a reasonable hour (for him on a weekend, anyway) around 10 pm, but he stayed up watching videos in his room for a while I was trying to relax to a nice mind-numbing episode of "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" about murdered prostitutes or something cheery like that.

Around 11:30 pm, he emerged from his room clutching a Bible. "I want to read you a Bible story, Mommy." "Maybe in the morning, Luke, you NEED to go to SLEEP now."

"What story did you pick out, incidentally, Luke?" I asked, as he meandered back to his bedroom.

"The Wedding at Cana," he said. "Night, night."

Hang on a second. Of all the anecdotes in the Bible, my 8-year old wants to regale the one about Jesus turning water into jugs of WINE to his recovering alcoholic mother?

Thankfully, God, Luke and I all have a sense of humor about such things.

Glad This Wasn't My Kid...This Time.

Glad This Wasn’t MY Child. This Time.
Current mood: blustery
Category: School, College, Greek

Each month, the second graders in Luke’s class compile journals. These journals consist of one-to-two page blurbs including riddles, poems, short stories, observations, et al. Neatness counts, as does originality of subject matter, "using interesting words," proper capitalization and punctuation, blah blah. (Thank you, English teacher, Andrea, for the emphasis on the "blah-blah.")

My son loves to yack about unproven scientific theories, superheroes, riddles, meteorlogical phenomena and stories about his best friend, Adam, and Adam’s new Ewok-esque, squirrel shaped dog, Sparky. Some entries are banal, some monontonous, some downright charming (much like Luke). On occasion, the teacher will have the students read from these journals aloud to the class before the journals are handed in for the month and the teacher can rip the children’s creativity to shreds and then suggest the parents "discuss" the journals with their children. During this discussion, Luke’s father and I typically high-five his utilization of words No Other Second Grader Knows and affirm that in all likelihood, his teacher wouldn’t know a dangling participle if it was hanging from her nose snot.

Such was the case one day last week. Sort of.

One of the girls, let’s call her "Sally," read her journal entry out loud to the class. Sally is a snippy little tike, for sure, who takes after her Chicago cop father with the potty mouth (great, I’ve just narrowed down the possibilities in Luke’s class of who I’m actually talking about to, uh, about 3/4 of the children). Sally has some major anger issues, to put it mildly.

Whereas my son knows in what proper context to whip out an "F Bomb," I’m not sure Sally does. Sally was reading to the class, about what Luke doesn’t remember, but then just threw a random "fuck" into the story. According to Luke, the teacher’s eyes bugged out and the rest of the students looked on, astonished, puzzled, frightened and confused. Naturally, I didn’t scold my child when he told me of this story, because, well, I wanted to know WTF happened.

What mother wouldn’t?