Bob Harper and Me

When I first started teaching full time, one of my students asked me how old I was. Everyone in the class, wide-eyed, stared at him like he was insane. Someone whispered, “Dude, you don’t ask ladies that question.” I didn’t want to answer him, not because I was afraid of sounding old, but because I knew that some of my students were older than me, so I did something I don’t recommend doing if you are sensitive about your age. I told them to guess.

“45?” one of the young women ventured.

“You’re a little off,” I said. I was 26.

“Well, that’s mainly based on how you dress.”

“Let’s move on,” I said, making a mental note to never again let college freshmen guess my age.

How, I wonder, did we become this way. Why are we so weird about our age, amongst other things? Why do we act as though some of us are immune to the passing of time? At 33, I have many students who hover around my age. They bemoan their age, as do, I’ve noticed, students in their mid- to late-twenties, as if there exists some phenomenal difference. Not surprisingly this is mostly from my female students. “I’m so old,” they’ll whimper to me, head in their hands.

“We’re the same age,” I’ll say.

I know what they mean, though: they are “old” for college. This is becoming increasingly less true, but that statistic is not of much interest to them, and I don’t blame them.

We put women in a weird place with age. Duh. Taught to hide our age to remain desirable, yet we ceaselessly mock women who are very clearly trying to mask their age with make-up and surgery. See just about every famous woman ever as an example.

It’s not just age, either, for which we are supposed to feel shame. We aren’t supposed to share our weight, and certainly not our BMI. I had a baby 7 months ago, and let me tell you, my hips do not lie about that. 

Enter Bob Harper.

Bob Harper is my new favorite celebrity trainer. You may have seen him and his sleeve tattoos on The Biggest Loser, a show that borders on voyeuristic. His workouts are the only ones I’ve ever done that, as I described to my sister Rachel, make it look like my whole body is crying because I am sweating so much. It is awful, but it is exactly what I needed, because I saw myself becoming a certain type of person: the person that slowly puts on weight, year after year, convincing herself it’s not that bad, even though she keeps having to buy bigger pants sizes, but she says stuff like, “well, I work out, so I’m probably just putting on muscle…”

I had faithfully been going to the gym 5 days a week for 35 minute workouts, but I wasn’t really working out. I was leisurely riding the stationary bike, listening to poetry podcasts, scrolling through Instagram. I didn’t even get a towel from the front desk to wipe off my sweat, but that’s because I was barely sweating. 

Now I hang out with Bob Harper five days a week from the comfort of my living room doing his ridiculously named workout, Blackfire, while Mae laughs hysterically at me. Watching me do burpees is, I have no doubt, hilarious. This workout is great for me for many reasons. 1.) Little to no equipment required. 2.) $12 a month. 3.) Lots of variation. 4.) Indescribably difficult. 5.) All online so no DVD. 

I’ve been doing it for barely a month and I feel like a triathlete. Like, I want to start an Instragram account for my shoulders. After each workout, I feel unstoppable. 

I weigh 155 pounds. If I knew my BMI, I would tell you that as well. Why does this feel ballsy for me to say? Why do I feel like I could end up on Good Morning America for saying that? “Oklahoma Mom Reveals Weight on Blog, Not Sure About BMI.” 

       Starting a workout is terrible. Especially if you are a woman, it takes awhile to see results, but just hold on, it will happen. I also don’t recommend weighing yourself. (I actually asked Todd to hide our scale from me so I can’t weigh myself. If you saw how small our apartment is, you would realize how amusing this is.) If you’re like me, you need someone to get in your face, which is why I like Bob Harper. No, I love Bob Harper. I like to tell my students I’m the Bob Harper of Freshman Composition. Then they stare at me silently. Reminding me of my favorite student evaluation comment ever: Her jokes aren’t that funny. And, yes, the word “that” was underlined.

Worrying About Money: I'm Over It

I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day. To celebrate, Mae and I went to Target. (In Oklahoma, with a baby, this is a big deal. I prepped for this 2-hour roundtrip the way others might get ready for an international trip.) Plans to visit The Botanical Gardens were thwarted because one of us is teething and got a little screamy. Todd was sick so he stayed in. Later, he ordered a pair of headphones off Amazon and I ordered this mug for myself. 

That’s how we do Valentine’s Day. See previous blog for information regarding how romantic I am. 

We decided on a $25 limit for ordering our own gifts for ourselves, but, really, who cares. Now that we have a baby, there are so many things I don’t think about anymore, and one of them, strangely, is money.

To be clear, we are not drenched in wealth. We are living off one salary and while I love my job, composition instructors are not known for their paychecks. Ever since I had what me and Todd refer to as Ginger Cancer (because it’s way more fun to say that instead of melanoma) money issues appear refreshingly mundane. My motto became, “If no one is dying, it doesn’t matter.” 

Yes, I know. Not a unique story. Redhead Has Cancerous Mole Removed, Develops New Outlook on Life. But I don’t care. Hopefully you never get told, or never have been told, that you have A Scary Disease. Here are my other tips on how to not worry about money.

1.) Remind Yourself Money is Radically Uninteresting

Seemingly everyone, understandably, frets about money, even those who “appear” to be doing just fine, which is another reason I told myself I didn’t want to think about it anymore. Have you ever had an interesting conversation about your finances? If you have, you and I will just agree we have different definitions of “interesting.” This is probably already true because my interests are rather David Sedaris-y, you know, like collecting coffee mugs that say “motherfucker” and flipping through vintage animal encyclopedias. The only time these conversations have been even slightly interesting are when I have a gift card somewhere and I’m talking out how I want to spend it. Like if I’m at Home Depot, for example, do I want to buy all Venus flytraps or just get one fog machine?

2.) No one ever says “I have the perfect amount of money and I will now be totally cool with that.”

Right? No one says that. Everyone is worried about paying their rent. Everyone is convinced their _______ bill is way too high and they are probably getting ripped off. Therefore, since we all think this way, who cares. As a side note, I am routinely perplexed by individuals bent on sharing their stories of Sticking It To The Man In The Form Of An Obscure Financial Loophole They and Only They Are Aware Of. You know this person. This person is in your life. They probably have one of those three-ring binders for their extreme couponing habit.

3.) You made it this far. You’ll probably be fine.

One day Todd sent me a text with a quote from one of his favorite philosophers, Hoda Kotb. It was, “Someone is happier with less than you have.” 

4.) Make a budget

Haha! Just kidding. Who has time to do that? I tried to once about eight years because I read about it in a magazine. I made it four minutes before I got bored and went back to watering my plants. One way I practice fiscal responsibility is shirking a large portion of what ladies are supposed to do. Being a lady is expensive, and I’m not okay with that. Do you know how much you can use baking soda for? Face wash, teeth whitener, homemade deodorant ingrediant, cleaning product, etc. The list is extensive, and a large box of baking soda costs three dollars. And while I actually think make-up is really beautiful and I enjoy perusing make-up aisles like I’m at a special exhibit in a museum, I don’t wear it because it pisses me off and I fundamentally disagree with the cruel circle it puts you in, forcing you to buy make-up removing towelettes, blah, blah, blah. I may not like talking about finances, but I love talking about baking soda. Don’t even get me started on DIY laundry detergent. 

5.) Prioritize

You know what, if money makes you happy, that’s great. It doesn’t make me happy. It actually makes me nervous. I value my time over money, and that’s why we have an extensive array of Ramen in our kitchen. Even when it comes to making grand purchases, like cars, I do not believe in research. I do not believe in Consumer Reports. I’ll take my chances with that vaccuum cleaner. I lack the patience. I don’t see the point. I’d rather do something else with my time. I’ve bought three cars in my life, and each time I went to one dealership, test drove one car, and then bought it. I’m either really lucky or the world’s most uninvolved motorist. Probably a mixture of both. I practiced the same tactic when I applied to college, named my child, and chose all of my doctors. So far it has worked great. If it ever has backfired, I don’t remember, probably because I don’t care and I’m glad I didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about it.

Why I'm Back to Intermittently Wearing My Wedding Ring (When I Remember I Own One)

        For Christmas this year Todd got me the Lego Architecture set of the United Nations building. I worked on it at night after Mae went to bed. It was an incredible three days. 

The other gift he gave me was even better.

He said I was finally allowed to pawn our wedding rings.

I had been asking to do this for years*, but Todd, such a romantic, didn’t want to. 

Now, I actually do enjoy gasping at the wedding rings of others. Those of you who have watched commercials with me might note my irritating penchant for loudly pointing out which minor characters are wearing or not wearing a wedding ring. But for some reason I never really took to mine. When we got married, the only traditional thing we did was buy rings. We spent, combined, what was in my eyes a ridiculous amount of money for jewelry, but it just seemed like something we should do. I remember being at Zales in the mall and pointing to the cheapest one. The woman working behind the counter said, “That looks just like my first wedding ring.” It was very small, thin, gold-looking. $60. A little rich for my blood, but anything cheaper I’d probably have to walk over to Hot Topic.

If I could go back to that Zales in St. Joseph, Missouri, Future Meg would grab the ring out of Old Meg’s hands and say, “Think logically. This isn’t your scene! What are you doing here?”

One reason it doesn’t make sense for me to buy anything even vaguely expensive is that I lose everything. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost my wallet. I’ve been known to set down my purse in Target when I’m looking at Legos and then just walk away, Lego set in hand, purse on the floor. This is why my sunglasses come from thrift stores and I’ve all but stopped buying earrings. So it is a miracle I never lost my wedding ring.

We both wore our rings the first year, but gradually we just sort of stopped. Todd didn’t wear his to work, afraid he’d lose it behind the bar, maneuvering glasses in and out of the dishwater. That was a good reason, way better than mine, which was just that I forgot and didn’t care. Interestingly, Todd got questions and strange looks when people noticed his bare hands. They asked him if “everything’s okay,” as though we were in the midst of a trial separation. No one asked me anything. 

Before you start thinking that we are hard up for cash, alternating who has to take the bus down to donate plasma, let me be clear my desire to sell our rings had little to do with money. I just didn’t want one anymore. If we got married today, and someone was like, hey, here’s some money. Do you want to buy wedding bands or have a memorable dinner at a new restaurant? I’d choose the memorable dinner.

We decided our first attempt to sell the rings would be at our local pawn shop. I got really geeked out to do this, and folded this task into a day of random tasks I was looking forward to accomplishing. First I had to go to the Social Security Office to get a card for Mae. (Did you know they have an armed guard?) Then I had to get an oil change for our faithful Pontiac. After that, I had to get a sandwich and a cup of hot tea at an adorable, tiny restaurant.

So, have you ever been in a pawn shop? They are 95% a gun shop, 3% a Jerry Maguire DVD storage bin, and 2% chainsaws/tree stumps carved into bears.

I am not even going to tell you the dollar amount me and Todd had decided we would need in order to sell, because it is so laughable, now, considering the amount the guy at the pawn store offered us, but let’s just say I’d been looking up prices of iPad Minis. This is the conversation that transpired between me and the guy who for the purposes of this blog we’ll call Ron.

Me: “Do you guys buy wedding rings?”

Ron: “Everyday.”

Me: “Okay. I have two.”

Ron: “How much you looking to get for these?”

Me, internally wondering, is that how this works?: “I don’t know.”

Not that long of a story made short, Ron offered me 27 dollars.

I did not take the offer. Instead, we got a really delicious pizza that night for dinner.

Briefly we considered some other hillbilly-deluxe way of selling our rings, but in the end it seemed like a lot of work for very little pay off. Who knows? Maybe years down the road I’ll look at my ring and be glad I never got rid of it. Maybe I’ll give it to Mae so that when I’m dead she can try and pawn it.

I’d argue that I am romantic, but perhaps in ways that aren’t as celebrated. While Todd and I never do anything on Valentine’s Day, we do believe in surprising each other. Todd once offered to organize my closet. It was like I was falling in love with him again. One of the most romantic things Todd can do for me is offer to organize varied realms of our apartment. (You should see our kitchen cabinets.) I am trying to think of something I do for Todd, but I’m drawing a blank…Maybe I let him watch his sports-related programming if I’m watching a nature documentary on Netflix?

      I think this is what can make a couple successful: eschewing tradition. It can be more personal, less expensive, and more interesting. (Emphasis on the word “can.”) If you asked Todd if I’d rather have a new bracelet with matching earrings OR a dozen really good chicken wings and creative storage solutions for all of Mae’s bi-products, I think the answer is clear.

* We've only been married four years.

17 Things I Do Now

1. Chart Todd's naps, including date, place, and duration.

2. Clean my bathroom on Saturday night.

3. When I’m planning to exercise the following morning, I go to sleep with the workout DVD already in the player, and my workout clothes on. Then when my alarm goes off I hit the snooze 6-8 times and get up 20 minutes before class starts. 

4. Sleep with a watch on.

5. Get unnaturally excited about renting a self-storage unit. 

  Be forewarned. The next time you talk to me, I’m probably going to spend the first 10 minutes gushing about our newly acquired self-storage unit. Todd and I move all the time, which means we never really live anywhere. At our present locale, we don’t have a basement, attic, or garage, which means our bikes are in our bedroom and we use Rubbermaid Totes as end tables. 

  But not anymore. 

  Upon deciding to rent out a storage room, we became giddy, running around our apartment, picking up anything: a bowling ball, tomato stakes, garbage bags of newborn onesies. What about this? Can we put this in storage?! Nothing was safe. I coud write a whole blog post on how important I deem storage, not to mention the mental clarity I achieve when I feel a space de-cluttered of seasonal items. 

6. Order socks off Amazon.

7. Order a Chinese earpick with a flashlight attachment off Amazon.

8. Sympathize with Kim Kardashian.

9. Critique the footwear choices of TV Moms.

I did this before. Now I’m just louder about it because I think I have more credibility.

10. Entertain nightmare scenarios for Mae, e.g. explaining Moses was not one of the Founding Fathers, even though her Texas school book says so.

  During a discussion on abortion (What was I thinking?!) in my class, one of my students said, “If she can lie on her back for a man, she can lie on her back for a baby.” When I got home I cracked open a fresh box of wine, clutched Mae, and sat on the floor listening to Mary Lambert. My knee jerk reaction is to home school her, forever, on a boat that we sail around the world together.

11. Google rhetorical questions, e.g. “Babies can’t choke on liquids, right?”

I’ve made Todd promise that when I die the first thing he should do is delete my history. Perhaps in this age this goes without saying, but I needed a verbal commitment from him. It’s too important, and not because my history is weird; it’s more like a painful museum of neuroses, and no one needs to see that.

12. Engage in lengthy discussions about humidifiers, car seat regulations, and the nuances of infant bowel movements, late at night with Todd over red wine.

13. Ask for glass food storage containers for Christmas.

14. Hum “Hickory Dickory Dock” to myself.

15. Do all my work on the floor while the cats nap in our leather recliner.

16. Order Japanese hair wax for men off ebay.

I’ve been searching for the perfect hair product for years, and I finally found it: in Asian convenient stores. It isn’t sold in America, but it’s so worth it. Without it my hair looks and feels like shag carpeting.

17. Get jacked up about donating platelets.

It’s. The. Best. You sit with your feet up for an hour and a half, watch a movie and intermittently request snacks and drinks. It’s like a manicure but better because you don’t have to make small talk. It is also a healthy civilian task to complete that makes me feel like a superhero.

The Myth of "Sleep When She Sleeps" and "Let the Housework Go"

During my oft-bitched about maternity classes, I distinctly remember watching a video where a beautiful, ethnically ambiguous woman sat at a table nibbling an apple between sips of tap water. Her baby, resting in a bouncer at her feet, calmly read Dostoyevsky while wearing a monocle. (The three-month mark is a great time to introduce the Russian novelists. If your baby isn’t quite there yet, hopefully you are reading this blog on your phone while you wait in your pediatrician’s office! Don’t worry, though, I’m sure everything’s fine…)

The video was meant to illustrate several things, such as what to eat so you don’t suck as a mom. My classmates and I all nodded to ourselves and took notes. I wrote down “Don’t shotgun a Coke over the sink while boiling water for Ramen noodles.” And, I swear to you, I have stuck to that. I think it’s good advice to eat well. I have a bit of a problem, however, with some of the other pieces of advice.

Sleep When She Sleeps and Let the Housework Go must just be words people say to women when they are nine-months pregnant with their first child so they leave maternity classes feeling assured. I clung to that advice because it made me really happy. Then I had a baby and realized it was all bullshit.

Mae and I eating dinner.

When Mae takes a nap, I naturally spend the first 15 minutes panicking about everything I have to do. Then I ask myself how long I’ve been wearing the clothes I have on. If it is more than a day, I scan for vomit. If I don’t find any, I count that as a success and move on. Am I hungry? Probably. Actually, always. (I don’t eat full meals anymore, unless you count Todd hand-feeding me tacos while I nurse Mae in an armchair.) So I shove a Clif Bar in my mouth and eat it like I am being timed for a contest. Next, I probably have to pump so Todd has a couple bottles to accomodate Mae’s adorable appetite while I’m at work the next day. This is fine though because I can just stand at my kitchen counter and grade papers while hooked up to the vaguely Medieval machine that is my breast pump. You know what? While I’m here I might as well do some calf raises.

Let the Housework Go? When we say that, do we just mean let the housework that you only do every 4-6 months anyway go? Or the housework you only do if someone you’ve never met before is coming over? Like Michelle Obama? Because then I understand. Like, I’m not going to be dusting my ceiling fan until Mae graduates. With her doctorate. But the rest of the housework? How can you not do that? Mae wears clothes and takes a bottle. She also breathes air and needs a place a sleep. All of this means that I cannot let the housework go, at least not in a way that would be beneficial to me in terms of time. 

You know what me and Todd do in order to remain calm and collected? We don’t let the housework go and we don’t sleep when she sleeps. Two words: cocktail hour. Readers of my previous blog will not be surprised. I’m drinking right now, and Mae is resting peacefully. I have frozen bags of breast milk stacked precariously in my freezer. Let me tell you: makes everything go down a lot smoother. It must be why Roosevelt did it as well.

What I've Learned So Far

Here’s what I’ve learned about parenting so far:

Time doesn’t pass the same way it once did. Now, I’ll be like “My feet are hot. I should take my socks off.” Then six days will pass and suddenly I’m in line at the store buying vodka and cake mix. Hahaha! Just kidding. I don’t have time to make cake from a box! Also, I live in Oklahoma where byzantine alcohol laws prevent liquor and cake mixes from being sold side by side, as nature intended. Those of you who live anywhere else, except Pennsylvania, be grateful for the ease at which you can buy beer, wine, and liquor. Sometimes I have to go to three separate stores if I need to buy gin, tonic, and limes. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find the time to buy alcohol when you have a newborn? 

Not yet.

I thought I was good at multitasking before. That was amateur hour. Now, I possess Jedi Master-like skills when it comes to multitasking. I did not choose this. Rather, it chose me. Today Todd came home and I was sitting on the floor eating cold pizza, watching a documentary about India, bouncing Mae in her little bouncer seat with my foot, and pumping breast milk. If I had really been on my game I would have thrown in a little bit of exercise, maybe some bicep curls, but I couldn’t reach my weights from where I was sitting. Rookie mistake.

Nothing else matters anymore, not even Project Runway. Okay, that’s a lie. I love Project Runway, and I will try my hardest to watch it when it’s on, even if Mae is screaming a lot. 

No one should ever judge parents for anything they do, except when they do something clearly horrible, like buy a swaddler with dump trucks on it FOR THEIR DAUGHTER. This is my checklist for successful parenting:

Is your baby asleep?

Yes? Great news: you’re doing better than most.

No? I’m so sorry. Want me to spoonfeed you a cocktail?

How does anyone, like, anyone, have more than one of these adorable suckers? Three? Four? FIVE??? When you have that many, do you just hope they start parenting one another? Today our cat was forced to take a 13 hour nap in my dresser drawer because I didn’t realize she was in there when I shut the drawer. Later that day, when Todd and I realized we hadn’t seen said cat, I felt a little bad, but mainly I was like, well, she’s a cat. Parenting is REALLY demanding; I’m sure the cat understands. Also, if we hadn’t seen our baby in 13 hours we definitely would have noticed. Sometimes if Todd and I are really on top of things, you know, if we've slept for a good 30 minutes, drank a gallon of coffee and quickly eaten a hot dog over the sink, we sometimes remember what month it is. 

My concept of entertainment has changed dramatically. Ever watched America Ninja Warrior without the sound on while you respond to student emails and try to get a baby to fall asleep? It’s not that bad. Also did you know there is show called Last Call with Carson Daly on at 12:30? After Seth Myers? Did you know Seth Myers’ show is pretty good? Did you know Carson Daly is still alive? Did you know that AFTER THAT they show Kathie Lee and Hoda again?

I have a lot of opinions about infant sleepwear and what constitutes gender neutral animals on infant sleepwear. Ducks? Totally girls. Elephants? Could go either way.

I’ve become very critical of family-centric sitcoms.

Stay Tuned For Future Topics, Which Include: How to Pump Breast Milk At Work and I’m Using Cloth Diapers Merely to Spite the Godless, Price-Gouging Swine Who Make Disposables.