I’ve been so tired lately. My body has been tired, I mean – my brain is usually in go-go-go mode so I can’t sleep and make my body less tired. Blech. That’s partly why the blog content has been so weak – I have things in my head when I’m laying down and staring at the ceiling fan at 6pm, but my brain can’t seem to convince the rest of me to get up and wander over to the computer. It’s no wonder my pants don’t fit.

Cuddling something when I’m in bed tends to help me sleep better though. I still have my baby blanket that my great-grandma made and gave to me the day I was born. Now pushing twenty-eight, Blankie doesn’t look too snazzy. The original material has almost disintigrated, so just the backing and some patches are holding it together. But it’s mine and I love it, and it helps me sleep.

I’ve had trouble sleeping over at E’s house lately too, of course. The blanket does not travel with me everywhere I go (anymore, heh) so my arms are kind of antsy when I try to sleep in his bed. I suppose I could cuddle him, but I can’t sleep like that. And if I steal his pillow to hold, his head tips back and he snores.

Last week I hit on the idea of digging out a stuffed animal to keep at his house so I’d have something to snuggle and help me sleep. I took my old stuffed pig over to E’s place the other night and informed him that I had solved my sleeping problem.

“Who has a stuffed PIG?” he asked incredulously.

“I do.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me and picked up the pig from my lap, then bounced it experimentally on his leg. I laughed a little bit while he made the pig dance and do other dumb things like he was entertaining a two-year old. We’re both easily amused. E held the pig up to his face, snout to nose, and then waved at it.

“Hello, breakfast!”

“Hey!”

“What? Pigs are for breakfast!”

I snatched my toy back from him. “Shuddup, that’s my pig-friend.”

“That’s my pig-breakfast.”

“Pig hates you.”

He grabbed the pig back and stuck its ear in his mouth. “Nom nom nom!”

“You are attempting to eat a furry pig, you realize that, don’t you?”

“But it’s bacon.”

“FURRY. PIG.”

Maybe that title is misleading. I’m not actually losing any teeth this time. But still…

Did you have braces in the 1990s?

When I was in grade school, my dentist somehow decided that my baby teeth were not falling out fast enough, so he thought it best to yank them out a few at a time. That was a total of NINE teeth taken from me in a painful fashion just because my permanent teeth were a little bit slow. And said yankings didn’t speed them up anyway.

In junior high I was sent to an orthodontist. She told me my jaw was too small and not only would I need braces for my overbite, I needed some more teeth pulled to prevent crowding and further bite problems. So adios, FOUR permanent teeth. I have no fangs. Have you ever had a perfectly healthy tooth with a strong root removed in a violent fashion? Or four? I ended up taking the filter off the face mask and breathing pure nitrous oxide for that one – the novocaine didn’t cut it.

So we’re up to thirteen teeth pulled by eighth grade, followed by four years of braces cranked tighter every month in an effort to close the gaps from which my fangs were mercilessly yanked. Clever of my orthodontist, I suppose, to keep my business by MAKING gaps to close. When I got my braces off my senior year in high school, my dentist decided that it was time to cut out my wisdom teeth – again with the “crowding” excuse. They hadn’t even broken the gum yet, which meant he had to cut for all four of them. Two of them ended up being impacted and one was broken (not by the dentist, apparently it was growing in that way). OUCH. Motherfriggin’ OUCH.

So ever since I got  off my parents’ insurance and started managing my own stuff, I have avoided the dentist. I brush. I floss sometimes. But this winter, five years since my last professional cleaning, I developed a toothache that freaked me out enough to go. This is when I discovered that the roots of my molars are in my sinuses. That wasn’t great news, but I was told that my teeth looked okay. We’ll have to do a full checkup and cleaning to check everything thoroughly, they said. I dutifully scheduled it for February 4th.

Back to the braces question…

Did you have those metal bands that wrapped all the way around your molars?

We have a decalcification epidemic on our hands! Not only did I have to sit through about half an hour of scrapy, stabby things poking me in the mouth yesterday, I found out that people who had braces with those molar bands are experiencing a lot of enamel breakdown in those teeth. In my case, it was so much that I could have brushed and flossed every day and this gaping canyon of a cavity would probably still have developed sooner or later, simply because my tooth structure was so weakened. So I have that one that now needs a cap, another less-scary one on the same tooth on the other side, and an older, very broken filling on the top that must be repaired.

So February 12th = lots of novocaine, nitrous oxide, and four hundred bucks.

I plan on eating many, many cupcakes between now and then because really? As long as he’s working on it, I may as well give him all the cavities at once and blame it on the braces.

So where is MY bailout? I promise, Mr. President, I’m trying to do better on my own. You know, I’m probably trying a lot harder than the people at Citigroup who hold my mortgage in their greedy little fists. I have been making personal sacrifices and smarter choices, not trying to buy a jet. See?

SO FAR:

Traded leased Jeep for purchased Vibe and reduced car payment by $50, insurance by $5 and gas by $25 per month.

Removed on-demand and digital programming from cable package, saves $10 per month.

Closed all credit cards except one… left it open to maintain credit history, but deactivated the card so I won’t be tempted to spend.

Started reading the weekly mailer and clipping coupons.

Bought box of breakfast sandwiches (with coupon!) to replace daily McDonald’s stop en route to work.

Closed off living room vents and blocked door to that room to save on heat. Turned house heat down and now use space heater at night. Or make boyfriend sleep over. He’s warm.

Taking clothes to thrift store and using that money to buy other clothes there or on eBay, not new in the shops.

FINALLY asking boyfriend to contribute to gas money when I drive him everywhere.

Planning to put whole $1200 tax refund STRAIGHT toward credit card bill. No treats. Maybe a small treat.

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Hopefully those changes will make a sizable difference. But if they’re not enough, Mr. President, I will try and take a few additional steps. A personal bailout could really help me avoid these things.

CONSIDERING:

Getting rid of cable altogether but keeping internet? Saves $50 per month for 6 months, then the rate jacks up at the end of the promo. I don’t watch a LOT of TV, but I would probably want to as soon as I get rid of it.

Selling plasma for $30 per week… it’s downtime, really, and I could take my laptop and call myself a paid blogger. Could do it every week = $120 per month.

Signing up for focus group for “social drinkers” to make $100 for focusing, I guess… not sure yet what that entails. I left a message.

Getting personal loan to consolidate debt and help me budget better with the money I am saving.

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As much as I try, Mr. President, I don’t think I’m quite so bad off that I have to do anything too terribly drastic…

NOT YET:

Instead of putting it toward the credit card, use tax refund to fix a few things around the house and then sell it? Move to apartment and save a TON, enough to get out of all debt?

Go to Romania and sell kidney.

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But there are some things, Mr. President, that none of us should stand for. You are a man of principle; I know you understand the needs of the American people.

NEVER AGAIN:

Cheap salon color job

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Readers, what are you doing to save money until you get a federal bailout?

Sooo, that angry open letter to Chrysler Financial that I posted the other day? I sent it. Barring a few minor changes from the blog version I posted, I slapped the whole thing in an email and sent it. I’m a little surprised that I did that – I do my fair share of bitching to the intertubes but it’s pretty rare for me to bite the bullet and actually attack those evildoers.

But like I said in that post, the world needs righting.

There are a lot of people here in St. Louis that have vowed to boycott Anheuser-Busch products since the InBev buyout. They are protesting the layoffs, the end of the charitable contributions, and the end of the local economic supports that have always defined A-B’s presence in St. Louis. InBev does not love this city and really has no reason to be loyal to St. Louisans like the August Busch family did. None of these things matter to them, but they still matter to St. Louisans and we feel maligned by the company we have supported for four generations – hence the boycott.

“Does A-B know WHY you’re boycotting them?” I asked Tim the other day. I always thought he’d be cremated and his ashes kept in a Budweiser bottle, that’s how much the boy loves his Anheuser-Busch. He was drinking a Hefeweisen from Schlafly, our other hometown brewery.

“Same reason everyone is. The layoffs, the way they’re blowing off everything the company stands for, all that.”

“But if you boycott them, won’t they lose money and lay off more workers in St. Louis?”

“A valid point,” chimed in a friend between sips of Schlafly Pale Ale. “But we WANT their business to suffer because of what they’re doing… so what else can you do but stop giving them your money?”

“I just think maybe if InBev knew – formally, something official – why people are boycotting them, then they’d see what they have to change to get business back. They couldn’t just blame it on the economy or whatever, they’d have proof of an organized boycott against specific things. And not just the big ones by the unions and the bars who won’t serve their products anymore – they should know that even the regular St. Louis people are doing this.”

Tim nodded. “I guess. Maybe.”

“Write a letter,” I commanded.

I don’t know if he will. E and I are still drinking Bud Light – maybe we’re not so principled about the charitable contributions and stuff, but we do want to keep the jobs in St. Louis and InBev has already proven that they will cut jobs without mercy when they come up five dollars short on anything. But if it gets bad enough that I too choose to boycott them, the newly-empowered me will definitely write a letter. They should know why we’re mad. We can’t let them make up their own reasons and ignore the real ones that their consumers want fixed.

So I’m on a bit of a letter-writing kick. I did the one for Chrysler and one the other day about CPSIA, inspired by Jamie’s post on Oh! How Lovely! Shops. The CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Inspection Act) is a well-intentioned but poorly-constructed bit of legislature that has the potential to destroy the market for handmade and secondhand goods for children, from Etsy shops to the Salvation Army. Click on the link above to read Jamie’s post and learn more. It took me only a few minutes to write a letter to my congressman.

Chrysler Financial emailed me a form letter in response to my customer service rant. Maybe they didn’t even read it; maybe they laughed, printed it, and hung it on the fridge in the employee lunchroom. Actually, I’d kind of like it if they did do that. It would mean that someone paid a small bit of attention, even if it was only long enough to scrawl “bitch” across it in red Sharpie.

I could have done that letter a bit more professionally and with a little less mimicry and sarcasm, I suppose. I was very polite in my CPSIA letter and will try not to write my letters in a fit of pique anymore. But I will write them.

Change will never come unless we let those in power know what we want and why.

My Living Will

Last night my sister and I were talking. I said to her “I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids to keep me alive. That would be no quality of life at all. If that ever happens, just pull the plug, okay?”

So she got up, unplugged my computer, and threw out my wine.

She’s such a bitch.

From an email forward sent to me by my office mate yesterday… how does she know me so well?

In all seriousness, do talk about this important issue with your family. Living wills (also called advance directives) are documents that state your wishes to your family and healthcare providers in the event that you are not able to communicate for yourself. Many of us have heard stories of families torn apart emotionally and even ending up in court to fight over the care of a loved one who is not in a state to choose for him/herself. Someone is always saying “This is what so-and-so would want” or “S/he’d never want to live like this,” but who really knows?

You do. Tell your family. I prepared a living will before I went into the hospital for a minor surgery. Chances were pretty slim that I’d die or end up in a coma from a rare anesthesia reaction, but still… my family needs to know that in the event that I can’t make my own choices clear, I don’t mind having a feeding tube, and IV, or a blood transfusion. I’d like all efforts taken to resuscitate me if I go into cardiac or respiratory arrest. But if I’m in a coma for more than a few weeks and have sustained massive brain damage and will only be communicating through blinks if I do wake up, it’s on a legal document: unplug. That’s no life for me, and it’s no life to inflict on the people I love.

If you have a valid living will, your healthcare providers are obligated to follow it. That means that if you are a healthy 27-year old who goes into cardiac arrest but has a valid living will that says “do not resuscitate,” they HAVE to do what you have indicated – at least in Missouri we do. Think long and hard about the decisions you make when you make a living will. Talk about things with your doctor and make sure you know what everything on that form means. Understand what you’re doing… but do it. At least think about it. Some of us girls have already designated a friend to run to our houses and dispose of all the naughty toys if we die, just so our parents won’t see them. If you have the foresight to do that, why not this?

You can learn more about living wills and their legal implications (both in general and state by state in the US), as well as download a simple living will form here.

That was more serious than most of my posts. I’m exhausted. Wine, please.