It’s super red when it’s straight, and I cut off 2 inches. I’m inclined to let it go curly, since this is what it wants to do anyway. My friend Dan tells me redheads are nothing but trouble, so you might want to back away from the blog.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year. At the risk of sounding like an asshole, I’ve always been less sad about his death than mom’s. His life felt done. It’s like finishing a great book that ends as it should. I’m sad that it’s over, but it was time for it to be over all the same.

Saul brought Mom and Dad a bottle of wine, and I let them have a little — in part because Dad loved to booze it and in part to celebrate with them. I wanted to let them know they were going to be grandparents again. Devon and I found out the previous week. I know they would have been excited, especially mom. My brother has two kids, but people who took in 350 foster kids would have gladly welcomed more. When Mom was in ICU, two months before she died, Devon and I told her we were getting married and that if we had a kid and it was a girl, we would name her Aurelia, after my mother’s mother. She cried.

So I poured some of the wine into the dirt and told Mom to go easy, because she’s a lightweight. I sat by the grave for a bit and talked to them about the future. Then I went home.

Two days later I miscarried. It wasn’t very painful and there’s wasn’t a lot of blood, and I’m fine.

Devon took Friday off and we spent a long weekend cooking and watching movies and playing video games. I drank the wine I couldn’t drink at the grave site. We lit the candle over Fitz’s tiny urn and enjoyed the amazing lamb and ratatouille Devon made, along with my cream of mushroom soup and vanilla-chocolate pudding.

A lot can happen in the first three months. We were aware I was pregnant for only 10 days. The embryo would have been the size of a lentil bean. But it was a wild 10 days. We’re not devastated, certainly not like we would be if one of you died. Sad and subdued is more like it. But we’re OK.

My day in court ended well. In short, my brother has agreed to accept a settlement. In return, he will withdraw his challenge, and I can sell the house.

I can’t believe this part is over. I keep pinching myself. It’s like my brain tumor got downgraded to a head cold.

In a few weeks we can put the house on the market, and we could be completely done by summer or fall if all goes well.

I keep repeating that last line to myself, but it still doesn’t feel real. Maybe I’m asleep. But if I’m writing a blog post in my dreams, then I’m the dullest person on the planet.

Please let me know I’m not dreaming. You can do this by sending me dick jokes.

Enormous pants bring me and Devon closer together

Well, they ARE my pants. Sort of.

I own these pants now thanks to the Finders Keepers Losers Weepers Law. That law was passed right after the Patriot Act, which is why no one noticed. Really, people, you need to pay more attention to politics if you don’t want to lose your enormous pants.

I don’t know how we got them. They just showed up on our dresser one day. It’s like the crappiest Christmas miracle ever. This is what I get for making Tacky Plastic Jesus date my Barbies when I was 9.

I’m trying to be positive, but I’m not exactly a ray of fucking sunshine, so it’s hard. Like, there are starving kids in Africa who don’t even have pants and would love these. If they had pants, McDonald’s would let them in, and then they could buy Happy Meals and they wouldn’t be starving anymore. These pants could save their lives.

If these were your pants, I’m sorry. They probably got mixed up with my clothes at the Laundromat. I would give them back, but I’m sending them to Africa. It’s the right thing to do.

++++++

This shit’s cool. Trust me:

I don’t even understand this headline, let alone the underlying science
The 7 Dumbest Video Game Inventions That Actually Exist
I link to this because it would have been useful when Devon’s computer sounded like it was          taking off from a tiny runway under his desk

Devon: The Maytag Maxima is an awesome dryer. I can’t wait until we have a house so we can get one.
Me: You’ve been drooling over that one.
Devon: When I’m not drooling over stoves, like the ones with the griddle in the middle. Oh yeah.
Me: It’s too bad you’re good at what you do. You missed your calling as a domestic goddess.
Devon: I’m more domestic than most men.
Me: Yeah. If you were a stay-at-home husband, I could spank you for getting the wrong coffee.
Devon: God, that ad is so weird. Who thinks it’s OK to spank your wife for getting the wrong coffee? … I mean, spanking isn’t always bad. …
Me: Yeah. It’s all about context.

+++++

This shit’s cool. Trust me:

In the end, it’s always about vagina
Edible spray paint
Stupid commie Muppets 

Me: I like this one. It’s nice. Relaxing.
Devon: It would be good for gaming.
Me: Yeah, for the forest scenes. Right before a kobold rapes your face.
Devon: <silence>
Me: You know how it is. You’re just wandering thought the forest, all “la la la la,” and then kobolds come out of nowhere and rape your face. It happens a lot.
Devon: I think you shouldn’t talk anymore.

+++++++

This shit is cool. Trust me:

Nigella Lawson’s amazing tits
This 26-pound party Gummy Bear is totally real
Food porn: Twix cheesecakes 

My other objection was with Hollywood’s hard-on for movies about lonely hot chicks who pine after dickholes. I didn’t buy it on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” either, where I was expected to believe that Sarah Michelle Gellar couldn’t get a date. Maybe that’s true in TV high schools, where everyone is 24 years old and smoking hot, but in real life, kids look like this.

Dear movie chicks: You are hot. You have this problem only so average-looking and ugly women can relate. If you didn’t bathe for a year and brushed your teeth with dog poo, you’d still have to beat them off with a cattle prod. And that would only make you hotter.

Devon said he knows a few hot women who have had this problem, but I questioned his judgment when he claimed that I look like Kristen Wiig in that scene where she’s primping in her panties and bra. That’s just crazy talk.

Not that I don’t appreciate the flattery, but I’m all, “Dude, you don’t have to bullshit me. I’m ALREADY having sex with you.”

I was going to end this blog entry there, but then Devon came over, trying to be all sweet. It was like a movie scene. He leaned over me as I as sitting in my chair. I looked up and puckered my lips for smoochies, and he had a bronchitis-addled coughing fit right in my face.

A movie scene as written by Ben Stiller, I mean.

Devon:  What the fuck does a wrist mounted crossbow need with a LASER?
Me:  Why DOESN’T a wrist-mounted crossbow need a laser?
Devon:  It doesn’t even hit where the laser is.
Me:  Who gives a shit? It’s a WRIST-MOUNTED CROSSBOW. It doesn’t need to take your crap.

Sigh. He just doesn’t understand my needs.

+++++++

This shit is cool. Trust me:

Everything you want, you can get in pewter
Dream job for getting the hell away from your family
Read the comments

This is what happens when a dude buys $50 worth of M&M’s, leaves them home for two days and expects me to exercise self control.

I considered leaving it there. You know, in case I get locked in the bathroom for days and run out of cat food. But in the end, that M&M never had a chance.

I got about halfway to the subway before Devon was all, “You walk like a toddler on smack” and offered to let me use his arm to stay upright. Because despite the frequent blog abuse I inflict upon him, he loves me. He even worked hard to hail a cab at the end of the night so I wouldn’t  have to walk back home. I abuse him enough that it’s only fair to not abuse him sometimes.

The reason he had to work hard to hail a cab is because convincing Manhattan cabbies to go to Brooklyn is like convincing Lindsay Lohan to switch to O’Doul’s, and the ones who refuse should rot in the hell of first-world problems. But I digress.

These turn me into a bobble-headed doll: Everything is fine as long as I stand perfectly still and don’t move too far in any one direction.