Not to get all Oprah-y and start shouting out my favourite things like you should care…but I’m going to shout out my favourite things. And please pretend to care.

Beyond that, I want to gather all of your favourite things that you have found between the last list and this one because I need distractions. So add a favourite thing in the comment section that someone else may also find to be their new favourite thing if they try it/see it/read it/taste it. Don’t worry if you’re referring to local products or establishments–there’s bound to be other people either living in your area or passing through. What a great way to set up a vacation for yourself–go visit everyone else’s favourite places (speaking of which, I was once at a concert and the couple next to us decided their summer vacation spot based on a concert that they wanted to hear. They were from Texas, but they had come to D.C. both to see the city and to hear the Elvis Costello concert out at Wolf Trap. I loved that idea).

So my new favourite things in no particular order:

The Ten, a new movie by the same people who brought you The State on MTV (as well as Stella, Reno 911, Wet Hot American Summer and a bunch of other projects). David Wain and Ken Marino wrote the script together and it’s directed by David Wain. I pretty much left the sofa wet with urine after watching this film with Josh last week. It’s 10 interconnected stories woven together by Paul Rudd’s character who introduces the 10 stories while simultaneously disregarding any of the advice they contain. As the website for the movie states, “The Ten Commandments have been a cornerstone of our society for nearly one hundred years. If you’ve ever taken a Sunday off, or if you’ve ever stopped yourself from murdering someone, then you yourself have been following the Ten Commandments without even knowing it.” The stories range from neighbours who try to out-do each other by purchasing dozens of CAT scan machines to a librarian having a fling with Jesus Christ while in Mexico to men who get together every Sunday to hang out naked and listen to Roberta Flack. You can watch the trailer here (warning–nudity and language if you’re currently at work…). It opens on August 3rd around America, though Josh is doing a sneak preview in July if you’re in D.C. and want a good distraction.

The library. In general. It’s like retail therapy without the price tag. You don’t even need to read all the books–it’s just nice to walk through and browse and check them out and bring them home. I think sometimes we forget about the library–I know that I went for five years or so without stepping into my local library. What brought me back? The cookbooks. I go in and check out ten cookbooks or so and sit in bed and look for new recipes. The library is also sort of like getting to test drive a book. If I start the book and I’m immediately in love, I just return it to the library and purchase a copy at the book store. If I’m not in love, I don’t feel badly if I return it without finishing it. I’m just saying this in case you’ve spent all your money on injectibles and can’t afford new books. The library makes me feel like a millionaire, baby!

My planner. I’ve spoken about it a lot lately, but I wanted to mention it again. It has not only organized my life, but completely revamped my attitude. Okay, so that attitude has gone through some dips and peaks, but regardless… The planner rocks.

Popcorn. We’ve been having a popcorn renaissance that started when we tried Alton Brown’s recipe (which was fantastic and is our new standard) and continued when we found a popcorn store at Virginia Beach called Jody’s (they also ship anywhere) with the best caramel popcorn. Popcorn was also something I forgot about until recently and I’m so happy to be reunited with it. I have printed out a few new popcorn recipes from Food Network and will be testing them soon.

Those are my new favourite things…now what are yours?

You need a distraction, I need a distraction: let’s talk Harry Potter instead of feeding the big white elephant in the room. If you are looking for a little non-hoohaahooterus talk, join us at

I’m going to try (try being the operative word) to keep the roundup brief this week because I think I’ve tortured you enough with extremely long posts. But I wanted to send out a public thank you to everyone because I was anxious posting those thoughts on my anger and jealousy. It was what was on my mind. And the beauty of the blogosphere is after you spew bile like that and are stewing in your own inward anger, that other people tell you that they’ve felt the same thing and some of those emotions evaporate. So either we’re all bitches, or we’re all human. One or the other. Sometimes I need that reminder.

And what better way to immortalize the angry jealous streak than to participate in Kirby’s new meme and write a haiku?

This is not a wait-to-be-tagged sort of meme. This is a put on a black turtleneck, grab a cup of coffee, and let your angsty flag fly. And look, Josh doesn’t even really have a blog anymore (except when I force him to post in the Annex–if that doesn’t make me sound like the taskmaster…) has joined in with a few of his own:

I go through this same wave on a micro level each cycle, but I’m currently going through it simultaneously on a macro level. This is how the wave looks:

On the micro level, the wave follows the cycle. The excitement of starting the cycle, the anxiety of not knowing what will happen, the sadness that comes each time (for me) before ovulation. The mounting frustration and the apex of jealous rage. The huge crying storm that passes with hours of sad acceptance giving way by the morning to tentative peace. And then the cycle starts again.

I spend the bulk of my cycle tottering of the tip of jealous rage. Sometimes I’m riding it so well that I barely notice where I am. Sometimes I’m paying such close attention to not being swept under that I am acutely aware that I am staring too long at pregnant bellies.

But it feels like overlapping the actual cycle, I go through these same emotions at the macro level. My excitement over a new technology or option. We were turned onto the idea of domestic adoption while reading Elizabeth Swire Falker’s book. We had only considered international up until that point. So there was the excitement when it seemed like a possibility. And then the anxiety started to crop up–what if it wasn’t the right choice for our family? What if we weren’t chosen or went crazy during the wait? Then came the extreme sadness of thinking about how I possibly wouldn’t know that child from the first second of life (never mind that I didn’t get to take the twins home until three weeks…). And then the frustration over cost; the anger that other people we know are having children for free when we have to spend so much money just to become parents. The jealous rage at those who had already been through the process and were happily ensconced with their child. The huge storm of crying that takes place over days. And finally the sad acceptance that if it’s the path we need to take, it’s the path we need to take. And the peace as I wait in a relatively decent spot, going through my day and trying to keep perspective.

The emotion I have the most difficulty accepting is jealousy. I am a jealous person by nature. And by “I” I really mean all of us. I don’t really believe it when people tell me that they don’t struggle with jealousy. It makes me want to smile sweetly and say, “oh…you must not understand that word. Jealousy is that emotion you feel when you so desperately want what others have that you turn the anger inward on yourself because you’re terrified of the way you’re turning the anger out towards others. Hmmm? Sound familiar now?” I think there are people who have better control over their jealousy, but none who go through life without coveting at least once something that others have.

Anne Lamott has a wonderful essay in Bird by Bird that may not provide you with eternal peace, but will, at least, make you feel less alone when you are struggling with your own jealousy. It is an essay about being jealous of other writers and how jealousy is inherent in the field of writing where you are constantly being judged. I have to be honest, I’m thin-skinned and I don’t do well dealing with my infertility jealousy and my writing jealousy at the same time. It’s quite enough to have my body let me down again and again. It’s another to allow myself to be rejected by putting my work out there for acceptance or rejection.

When I’m putting myself through something emotionally difficult, I ask myself whether it’s worth it. I asked myself that with infertility. And I came back with the answer that yes, it is necessary. I need to parent. I want to write. Or more accurately, I want to publish. I mean, anyone can write. I’m doing it right now with this blog. And it would really be enough for me if…and here’s the jealousy part…my husband wasn’t also a writer. I could walk away and take myself out of that emotional wave from excitement to jealousy if I didn’t have to observe someone else achieving that old goal within my very house. It’s also completely unreasonable to put this on him (I own this entirely and don’t think he should change one iota based on my insecurities). It’s my own shit and it wouldn’t make me feel any better if he stopped writing. It’s also contradictory because seeing him productive makes me happy and gives me hope that I can be productive too. And it isn’t even a competition where I need to be as successful as him. It’s simply the fact of seeing someone achieve my old goal and thinking about how I didn’t stick it out that drives me to keep going.

There are numerous lesbian couples where both women try to get pregnant. And I’ve always wondered what happens in that home when you are eagerly awaiting the birth of your child AND you’re mourning your own infertility if you can’t conceive and your partner can. You’re certainly happy for your partner and you’re happy that you’re about to become a mother, but at the same time, there is a bittersweetness in all of that happiness because another person close to you achieved your goal. Does any of this make sense? Maybe that’s not how it is at all for other people, but I know that’s the way it would be for me. And that analogy is how I feel sometimes about being two writers in a house. I wish I had chosen a path with fewer judgments. Maybe I need to go back to school and become a reproductive endocrinologist…

Can I just tell you that with my jealous personality, we are so lucky that I’m the only person who has the chance of getting pregnant in this house?

Anyway, the paragraph in Lamott’s essay that helped me tonight falls close to the end when Anne is setting out the pieces of the puzzle that helped her rein in her jealousy when a fellow writer was calling her daily to tell her about her literary success while Anne seethed on the other end of the phone.

…My friend Judy said that the problem was trying to stop the jealousy and competitiveness, and that the main thing was not to let it fuel my self-loathing. She said it was nuts for me to try to be happy for this other writer. I cannot tell you how much this helped. I was raised in a culture that promotes this competitiveness, this insatiability, this fantasy of needing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and then, in the next breath, shames you for any feelings of longing or envy or fear that it will always be someone else’s turn. I was only doing what I had been groomed to do.

I think that first line–the idea of stopping the jealousy–spoke to me. I’m not a fan of this idea that we need to be happy 100% of the time. We were given this enormous palette of emotions for a reason. I don’t think it’s our job to always try to realign towards happiness. I think it’s okay to remain for a while in sadness and explore it as long as we don’t allow ourselves to inadvertently board up all the exits out of the emotion.

When I am in this jealous space–as I am right now–I can feel it coming while I’m still ensconced in anger. This whole new attitude of saying “fuck it, I’m not faking it; I have made it. This is it” was born out of that anger and I knew that it would be tested the moment I crested into jealousy. It’s a terrible space to be–jealousy. I am angry at myself for my selfish, mean-spirited thoughts. I don’t like myself when I am coveting so
deeply that it makes me hate things and people that I normally love. It’s hard to exist with those extremes but it’s also impossible to deny what I feel–I feel these emotions so deeply.

Even when I’m on that wave, I always rationally know that the jealousy is going to break. It will either break because new information will come into play, bringing me into a different emotion. Or it will break because I can only sustain a single emotion for so long. But it’s a hard place–to be tottering on that precipice and looking down into the glassy surface of the water below and knowing that I can’t simply get off by throwing up my hands and saying, “I don’t want to be here anymore.” It feels like something constructive should come out of jealousy–that there should be a greater purpose.

Perhaps my jealousy is just as wonky as my cycles.

And if this doesn’t constitute airing out all my dirty laundry, I don’t know what does. Hopefully, you will not think less of me now that you know how small I actually am in reality.

About six months after Josh and I started dating, we went on our first road trip. We brought along an audio recording of David Sedaris’s book Barrel Fever, which contains a rendition of the essay “You Can’t Kill the Rooster” (which really appears in Me Talk Pretty One Day). In this essay, after a storm damages their father’s house, David’s foul-mouthed little brother, Paul (who calls himself the Rooster), brings over his Fuck-It Bucket:

…My brother rushed over with a gas grill, three coolers full of beer, and an enormous Fuck-It Bucket–a plastic pail filled with jawbreakers and bite-sized candy bars (“When shit brings you down, just say ‘fuck it,’ and eat yourself some motherfucking candy.”). There was no electricity for close to a week. The yard was practically cleared of trees, and rain fell through the dozens of holes punched into the roof. It was a difficult time, but the two of them stuck it out, my brother placing his small, scarred hand on my father’s shoulder to say, “Bitch, I’m here to tell you that it’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this shit, motherfucker, just you wait.”

I loved this essay so much not only because it was hysterically funny but because it felt like such a great attitude. The first time I heard this essay, I felt like that attitude was entirely within my reach and it was a great mindset where things didn’t weigh you down. You rolled with the small disappointments and knew that there was always a light at the end of the tunnel. And if not, there was, at least, a handful of candy. This is the attitude I’ve been trying out for the last week or so.

When I heard this essay, it was at a point in my life where anything really horrible that had happened in my life up until that point was in my past. Time has a way of dulling emotional pain and making it seem more manageable. The reality was that I had gotten almost everything I had set out to do. I had gotten into college and grad school easily. I had my share of crappy relationships, but those were all in the past. I was dating this fantastic guy who had already told me that he wanted to marry me. Yes, I was anxious until he actually proposed many months later, but I also knew that it was more likely than not that I was with the person I would marry.

It was easy to be appeased for a day or two with a handful of candy with the kind of disappointments that popped up during that time period.

Last night, as my new attitude was lagging (attitude–not planner usage. I am still fully committed to the planner and being organized), I was thinking about this essay and I can’t decide if the Rooster has weak-assed problems or a more enlightened attitude. Candy may have cheered me up a bit during those first months of trying-to-conceive, but it wasn’t going to make a dent in the depression that occurred during treatments. When I’m told bad news, the last thing I want to do is eat.

Infertility makes me want to grab an RE by his lab jacket lapels and shake him continuously while I scream, “just help me, you motherfucker, get me pregnant now. Make me your number one priority. Look at my chart and research my blood work and sonogram results as thoroughly as I do. Find the problem. Fix it, you motherfucker, fix it.” It’s like those what ifs you always dreamed up when you were bored in math class. What if I jumped up on my desk right now and started high kicking everyone in the face who came near me? Would I be sent to the principal’s office? Would I be ostracized by everyone for the rest of my time in high school? Would people talk about my nervous breakdown in the lunchroom that day?

Am I the only person who thought of these what ifs in math class?

I want to behave in the irrational, emotional manner that only seems to come out in dreams. I’m always rational Melissa who nods while the doctor is talking and asks sensible questions. I want to be dream Melissa, who shouts obscenities and lashes out and screams until the words are unintelligible because I am so frustrated. I am so completely frustrated that I can’t make my body do what I want it to do. And I’m frustrated any time I need to depend on another person in order to get what I want or do what I want to do. No one takes care of me like me (except maybe Josh and my parents). And I get to a point where I’m just done. I am so finished. And I would walk away if I thought it would bring me any peace. Except that I know that in exercising the little control I have by walking away, I’m not winning anything. I’m certainly not gaining peace. I’m only gaining a sickening, “what the fuck am I doing?” feeling and a greater frustration that I still need to return even if I do leave because I still haven’t achieved what I want.

How is candy going to fix that?

Last night, I was getting more and more frustrated, using fertility and my wonky cycles as a jumping board to vent on a long string of unfairnesses. People who don’t return phone calls. People who string other people along without regard to the emotional damage in their wake. Broken promises. A inability to walk away. Time that is still moving forward, ovaries that are continuing to age, children who are growing up, and every month less hope rather than more hope. Or different hope. And at the core of it, every option looks like it contains the potential for frustration and disappointments.

In this moment, I am just done with the ups and downs that are supposed to be smoothed over by the Fuck-It Bucket. The common disappointments in life (because if it wasn’t fertility, it would be something else) are making me want to throw my hands up in the air and scream “I quit.” Except that I can’t quit because this is the only life I get to live (until proven otherwise, this is what I have to work with) and I would feel deep regrets down the road if I walked away from any one of the number of spinning plates right now. If I let them crash on the floor, I have a feeling that I would always hold those pieces of broken china and say, “what if.” What if I had just plugged away and tried something different or tried something again or kept putting my heart out there. If you’re sitting around eating candy, you’re not in the game. I want so badly to not care so deeply. To just say fuck it and not try so hard. Because it hurts so much–all the downs. Especially when they pile onto one another (another BFN? How about insurance woes too? And let’s throw a new diagnosis into the mix.). But what can you do?

Either you’re eating candy or your mouth is full of bitterness but you’re moving forward to some resolution inch by inch.