Okay, I’m going to tell you something and it may be pretty shocking so I think you should probably sit down. Are you sitting? Comfy? Okay, here goes. I like some pretty nerdy shit. If I’m being honest, on a scale of one to Milhouse Van Houten, I’m a pretty low level nerd. I don’t own any dragon shirts (or wolves howling at the moon), I cannot tell you anything about Star Wars that you don’t already know, and while I have played World of Warcraft, I mostly just followed my husband and his friends around and tried not to die. All of this changed recently, though. I hit a new level of nerdery even I didn’t see coming. My friend Matt had asked me a while ago if I wanted to play Dungeons and Dragons with him, his brother, and their cousin. I originally declined because I’m a FOOL but also I was really busy at the time and I hate new things and meeting new people is something that I seem like I might be good at but fills me with a really specific type of anxiety that I can only describe as pukey?  Anyway,  he asked me again about two months ago, because they had started playing and it was obvious they needed at least one more person. This time I accepted and also volunteered my husband to play with us because I am both an excellent friend and bossy. It turns out that D&D is not a joke and you cannot just kind of show up and follow your husband and his friends around and try not to die. I learned this very, very quickly.

I wasn’t totally in the dark on all of this stuff (thanks, Hudson!) BUT I really, definitely, absolutely did not know what I was getting myself into. I started to look around the interwebs to get an idea of the level of research I had to do/what I was going to need to know for our first night. This is when I found out that I should have been on Reddit all day everyday for approximately the last six months to get up to speed. YOU GUYS. There is so much to know! It’s like learning a new language! The player’s handbook is (and I’m estimating here) approximately 3 billion pages long. The guide to building your character contains more detail than an instruction manual on how to operate a rocket in space and they use word combinations that you could only know if you were already a D&D expert (someone has to roll a constitution saving throw? I’m sorry, what. the heck. does that mean???), and also there are SO many options for everything. Do you want to be an elf? A half elf? A high elf? Do you want to read 500 pages on what all of these options entail because you can borrow my handbook. Bring a friend to help you carry it when you pick it up. Lucky for me, Matt is also an excellent friend so while I was making one of those boards people usually make in movies when they’re trying to solve a murder with sticky notes and red yarn so I could try to keep everything straight in my head, he offered to help me. Turns out, Matt is super into and excellent at building characters. He got me through the rough patches and didn’t even make fun of me once (to my face) when I continued to ask the dumbest questions and get confused about the simplest things (jk, none of it is simple, it’s all very confusing). This also led to my first interaction with Matt’s brother, our DM, Justin. Turns out, Justin is even more into building characters and D&D than Matt, me, or any other human on the planet, possibly? He also can recall like 85% of the player’s handbook at will, which is both scary and impressive. I once spoke with Justin for an entire hour while he gave me the rundown on a bunch of different things D&D related and even though I took notes and asked 600 questions, I am still not 100% sure what we actually talked about and if I understood any of it? One of my notes actually said, “Justin says this is important and I think that I need to max out int?” So, it went really well, is what I’m telling you.

After my extensive and thorough research, I was not even close to being ready to play, but I am woman of action so I wasn’t about to back out on my first game night. Did I maybe have a mini anxiety attack about embarrassing myself in front of Matt’s family because I really, really, for real, did not know what I was doing? I don’t know? I’m definitely not confirming or denying that for you! How dare you ask me such a thing? So we all Skyped in (some of us live far apart from each other) and I was almost immediately lulled into a false sense of security because Matt’s cousin and his wife are are super nice and not scary at all and I felt this slightly familiar sensation and realized that I was actually having fun! This lasted maybe 15 minutes? Then we actually had to do stuff! Like roll dice! Hey, did you know that there are several different kinds of dice? There are AND most of them serve a very specific purpose in D&D and while I now have a better grasp on this, that night I panicked basically every time Justin said the phrase, “okay everyone roll…” followed by some other word that in life I am very familiar with but in game felt like maybe he was speaking German? Swedish? Elvish?? I don’t know but, oh man, I was very confused. Despite feeling like an unsupervised toddler in a foreign land, I did make some decisions and do some badass stuff! I killed a bear! But also, that was bad and if I had thought about it for approximately 10 seconds, I would have remembered that my character adores nature and animals and would never, ever, under any circumstances kill another living thing unless she absolutely had to. Whoops! After a few hours, we called it quits and everyone waited until we had logged off to laugh at my bumbling.

Here’s the thing though. I really, really love this game a lot. It’s partially because I really, really like the people I play with. We lost a member (Susan, I miss you and someday we WILL start a D&D girl gang together) and gained a new guy and everyone is silly and not at all afraid to run head first into a battle we are in no way prepared for and just see what happens. We spend lots and lots of time getting sidetracked and trying to make each other laugh, and sometimes my husband spends (wastes?) a good chunk of time trying to convince us that he is more powerful or capable than he actually is, and sometimes we forget to check for traps and sometimes we almost get murdered by a horde of rats, but we are always united in our quest to annoy the DM as much as we possibly can, and it is always, every time, the best time. It’s also because everything about this game is really interesting to learn about. There are so many possibilities and ways to play and things you can do. I am still not always comfortable but every time we play I use my imagination more and I laugh more and I roll the wrong dice less. We as a society are correct. Being nerdy IS cool and we all should have caught on a long time ago.

I’m going to go prepare for when I ultimately make Justin so angry, he kills me immediately with something dumb like a boulder or a baby dragon, or a horde of rats, and roll my new Princess character. Sparkle Pants is going to be a BEAST.

Oh wait, nope. It’s me. Yep. I’m for sure the one crying. Sorry about the mix-up. You seem totally fine. Probably because there really isn’t anything to cry about? I’m guessing? I, on the other hand, have found, like, at least four really dumb things to cry about today, if not more. So, here’s the thing about me. If I am tired, sick, really hungry, in a grocery store, or feel inappropriately dressed for an occasion, I am probably going to cry. But not about the thing that is actually making me feel teary-eyed and instead about a really dumb and non-cry-worthy part of that thing.

When I was in high school a bunch of my friends and I would have big sleepovers at our friend Chris’s house. There would be like 15 of us and we would do the most spectacularly innocent things like watch The Sandlot on repeat all night or play video games, or  hide and seek, or take walks in the woods in the dark but always make sure everyone was safe and no one got lost, and we definitely never, ever slept. The morning after one of these sleepovers, our parents were picking us up to go an event for Operation Friendship (which sounds like a cult but was really an exchange program). I, being incredibly overtired and also upset that my mom brought me the wrong pants to wear to said event, walked out onto the deck with my friend Lindsey, stepped in a puddle, and BURST into tears. You see, my socks were wet and this was absolutely tragic. The worst possible thing that could have happened to me in that moment had happened and I could not handle it. I could not stop crying, because my socks were wet. This would be a sign of things to come in my life.

Today I was very tired and I didn’t really feel good. I didn’t sleep great last night and I woke up really early and couldn’t fall back to sleep and I was a mess all day. Not even a hot one. Just a regular ole mess of a mess. What I’m saying is, this was the perfect day for me to cry about some really dumb shit. And oooooh boy did I cry about some really dumb shit.

The Shirt

So, I have this white shirt that I really love despite the fact that I have never, ever, in my entire life, successfully owned any white article of clothing for more than thirty seconds without destroying it with food, coffee, make-up, blood (How? When did I even start bleeding? WHERE am I even bleeding??), a combination of any of those things, oh and one time sharpies, because I am a toddler. I decided I was going to wear this shirt today and just be verrrrrry careful. So, I manage to shower and only shampoo my hair once (I forget if I shampooed or not a lot, especially at 5:45am), and I’m feeling pretty cocky for a person who only got four hours of sleep, and I put my white shirt on. Oh man, I looked so cute! I turned to the side in the mirror and immediately spot it. What is it, you ask? I have no idea, but it’s redish and blotchy and down on the bottom near the hem. Now, as you might have already guessed, I have a lot of other shirts in various colors and styles that I have purchased over the years. The vast majority of them are currently clean! This is not a big deal! It certainly didn’t warrant anyone (me) weeping, sobbing, absolutely devastatingly ugly crying because I couldn’t wear it. It definitely shouldn’t have resulted in me sitting on my bed for five minutes shaking my fist at the universe, wondering why I can’t have nice things, but that is basically exactly what happened. Ultimately I decided it was the shirt that had betrayed me, not that I was messy, and I moved on to a green sweater.

The Person Being Nice to Me

For a person who is constantly worried if people think she’s likable, I get real weird when people are nice to me. My team got me a very cool travel mug and a day planner for Christmas last year and I burst into tears at my desk because I love travel mugs, day planners, and when people buy me gifts, but ALSO because how sweet is that? That is very sweet and thoughtful! I feel choked up just thinking about it (and also because I am very tired)! We won’t even talk about my birthday because it’s super hard to type and sob simultaneously. Today, someone I like a lot and whose opinion I value, was really nice to me and complimented me about something I am pretty self conscious about and ya know what I proceeded to do? Cry. A lot. In my car in public. The best part about it is that when I got in my car and started openly weeping, Spotify automatically started playing the last song I was listening to, which was Truth Hurts by Lizzo and the volume was waaaaaay up! Like, inappropriately loud. So just picture me, pulling out of my parking space at work, bumping Lizzo for all to hear, just losing it, like an absolute maniac. If you’re having trouble conjuring up the image, there are no less than 7 of my co-workers who could give you a pretty detailed description of this debacle.

The r/Humans Being Bros Sub-Reddit

Have you guys ever looked at this Sub-Reddit? You should, a lot, it will restore your faith in humanity for a second, but not if you are about to cry at any moment. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right, Reddit is mostly a cesspool, but not Humans Being Bros. It’s lovely. It’s all about people doing nice things. Today, I read about a little kid streaming Fortnite for 10 hours a day to help pay for his dad’s cancer treatment, a man shaking hands with a kitten,  a drunk guy calling an Uber to get an injured baby bird to a wildlife rescue center (he didn’t even get in the car and go with the bird, he just gently placed it in the car and the driver took it to the rescue center), a bunch of high school kids giving a silent standing ovation to a student with sensory issues, and a guy visiting the mother of a woman whose heart he received in a transplant so she could hear her daughter’s heart beat one more time. I MEAN. Am I supposed to not cry at all of that stuff? I’m just supposed to scroll through and not sit on the kitchen floor mid-taking my shoes off and actually say out loud, to no one because I was home alone, “I love people sometimes!” Over and over and over? Oh, I wasn’t? That’s kind of intense? Oh. Whoops! My bad.

The Toilet Paper in the Backseat of my Car

On a scale of one to someone tuck me in a put me to bed, I’ve been functioning on the side of the scale you would associate with a drunk person who refuses to put her pajamas on and go to sleep. I know what I need to do, I have successfully put myself to bed many, many times, but I refuse and I would like to torture myself and anyone in my vicinity just a little while longer so I’m going to keep this train wreck going and there is nothing you can do to stop me. I picked up groceries last Friday and forgot the toilet paper in the backseat of my car. Repeatedly. It’s actually still there as we speak. Luckily, we have enough at the moment, but based on my reaction when I realized I forgot it again, you might think it was in China and I had to walk/swim to get there and also that I maybe accidentally murdered someone and the guilt is unbearable and I am such a failure of a human and why does anyone even like me?? Could I just walk back out to my car and get it at any time like a normal human would do? Yes! Did I instead go over all my greatest failures and most embarrassing moments and decide that I had let everyone down and I’m the worst adult in the history of adults? Yes to that one, too! Did I cry the whole damn time I went over my life’s most upsetting set-backs and fumbles? You know it!  Will I continue to forget the toilet paper for eternity? Most likely! I Am I insane? Probably!

The time is now 9:05pm and I’ve decided that I’ve experienced enough emotional rollercoastering to last me until at least Friday, so I’m going to go eat Frosted Flakes and then get in my nice comfy bed by 9:30 and have a re-do on being a human tomorrow. Since starting this post, I’ve already had two close calls (did you know that Mary Poppins Returns is on Netflix now and just thinking about Ben Wishaw being a widow with three very cute kids and Lin-Manuel Miranda singing his heart out makes me do that bottom lip quivering almost cry thing and also that an armored car got into an accident and spilled hundreds of thousands of dollars everywhere and people just went and picked it up and brought it to the police station and basically all of it was returned and that makes me have to tilt my head up and blink really fast so I don’t cry again, some more) and I think it’s time I just stop for the day and become a gigantic heap of blankets and pillows and fall asleep. Goodnight.

So, last week I went to Arizona with my lovely and fantastic co-worker Melissa. I have been to AZ for work a few times and a combination of my near-paralyzing fears of getting lost/people thinking I’m not nearly as funny as I think I am/love of sitting by myself somewhere so I can get fully wrapped up in my own social anxiety (Remember that time in 5th grade I told a joke and it didn’t land and no one thought I was hilarious?? I do! It has scarred me for life and now I have this teeny moment of terror before something comes out of my mouth that I think will be funny) has usually kept me from doing a lot. Also, I’m historically an indoor kid. I believed I was not made for nature. I was made for books, video games, naps, bad teen romance movies, and doubting myself. Ya know, typical inside stuff. But THIS trip? This was like a whole new world. Melissa was like Aladdin and I was like Jasmine. We were on a magic carpet ride. It was magical. Is this weird yet? Melissa and I are just friends and as far as I know she’s not pretending to be a prince via a genie in hopes that I’ll marry her. We were more like two Jasmines. Still a whole new world though. The great thing about Melissa (there are lots of great things but we don’t have time for that) is that she has this really fantastic way of making you not feel weird about all your weird shit. I have so much weird shit. I feel weird about my hair, about my voice, about my ability to exercise, about how the only thing I really enjoy eating is chocolate chip cookies and ice cream, about what shoes I’m wearing or will eventually wear. Just. It’s a lot. But in Arizona, with Melissa being all supportive and kind and encouraging, I was this adventurous, semi-capable grown-up who was NOT afraid to leave her hotel or go on a hike or have fun. Admittedly I was fueled mostly by anxiety BUT there was definitely some new found confidence and badassery involved as well. Here’s a brief rundown of all of the things I/we did.

Hiking! 

Let’s take a second to discuss the last time I went hiking. Actually, let’s not. I can’t remember! It’s possible the answer is never. Not once! Not this trip, though! I totally hiked. In 105 degree weather!  I hiked the shiiiit out of North Mountain. For like an entire hour and a half. It was beautiful! Look!

We did not see any snakes, gigantic bugs, or scorpions. We did keep saying we wanted to touch a cactus, but we also kept forgetting to actually touch a cactus. There was also a brief moment where we couldn’t figure out which part of the trail we had taken when we were walking back to the car and I might have convinced myself we were about to die in the desert. Who can say, really?

Sedona!

You guys. Have you ever been to Sedona? Even if you have you should go back. Everywhere we turned there was something beautiful to look at (other than my FACE). It was insane. I have approximately 400 pictures from in the car, before we even got out and did anything. It felt fake! Also, we did SO MUCH STUFF there.

We found a little brook, visited two vortexes (masculine AND feminine), went to a church built into a mountain, went hiking near the airport (Melissa also basically ran up a mountain while I waited in the car and contemplated my own mortality), bought some crystals from a lovely but incredibly slow woman who would really love to visit Salem, MA and has a brother in Massachusetts, and she’ll be done in one second, she just has to spend the next 1-3 hours looking for the corresponding info sheets for every crystal, ate at this ridiculously beautiful and delicious restaurant called The Hideaway House (thanks, AJ3!), saw the fanciest Starbucks and CVS we’ve ever laid eyes on, and got ice cream. We could have stayed for days and never run out of places to go and things to see.

All of the fun and food!

I have a favorite place in Phoenix. It makes no sense because people bring their dogs there and it’s outside in the 250 degree weather but I love it SO MUCH. I make everyone go there at least once every time I visit because I am both bossy and have superior taste in hang out spots. It’s called O.H.S.O.  and they have the BEST grilled cheese I’ve ever eaten in my entire life, every song they play is my favorite song, and it’s got gigantic, cushy benches, to sit on. It’s lovely and it also always has delicious hard ciders and appetizers (RIP pork wings).

Have you ever had Mexican food? I disagree, unless you went to this specific street taco place my co-workers Doug and Ryan took me to. It’s called Paquime and it was heavenly. I’ve had dreams about it since we left. I had a carne asade torta and I am not even kind of exaggerating when I tell you that it changed my life for the better. I had some kind of food/life epiphany and now I can never go back to the way I used to be. I am a changed woman.

The absolute best food related thing that happened on this trip (and possibly my entire life up to this point) though? My new favorite place in the whole entire world? The one thing that I would sacrifice everything for? The Baked Bear.  Holy crap, this place is everything I’ve ever wanted in a dessert shop. They make ice cream sandwiches with cookies or brownies or a combo of both, then your choice of ice cream, then they heat up your cookies/brownies so the ice cream melts a little and it’s easier to eat. If I ever move out of Massachusetts, it will be to Scottsdale, as close to The Baked Bear as I can possibly get. Possibly to a tent in the parking lot or like inside the walls of the establishment so I can sneak out once it’s closed and everyone has gone home and make all the ice cream sandwiches I want.

I also had amazing bbq, Chinese/Mexican fusion, Pei Wei, a TON of delicious sushi (like a metric ton), Mellow Mushroom Pizza (meatball and mushroom 4lyfe), and Korean BBQ. OH AND the hotel we stayed in makes these ginormous Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup cookies and one night we got one fresh out of the oven. SO GOOD.

Pat (and Tim, too)!

Last but definitely, not even close to least, I got to see one of my all time favorite humans, my cousin Pat (her husband Tim is pretty great, too I guess, even though he always makes me promise not to hug him). When I started working for MassMutual, as I’ve mentioned before (That Time I Got Fired) I had a lot of anxiety and struggled in the beginning. The one thing that got me through everyday was hearing from Pat. We would send each other ridiculous pictures, talk about our anxieties, our shared extreme love of blanket forts, reading, being alone, and just generally got to know each other better than we ever had the chance to do before. Turns out we’re basically twins. We want the same pizza, we get stressed out by the same things, we have the same type of nightmares, and we are both really freaking cute and funny.  Someday we’re going to be neighbors and we’ll send our husbands away, gather all the blankets and pillows we can find, build a GIGANTIC fort and spends days quietly reading. Also, she doesn’t know about this part of the plan but she’s also going to bake me cookies on a regular basis.

There was a bunch of other really great stuff, too. I got to see friends I missed a LOT, hang out with co-workers I just met (hey Ryan, so great to meet you for the first time ever in our whole lives), go swimming every day, learn that I am stronger and braver than I thought I was, get to know people I love even better, and just generally remind myself that I am lucky and I am happy and I know some pretty awesome people. Arizona was pretty good to me. Here’s one more picture because Melissa and I look hella cute in it and it makes me happy.

Oh hey! It’s been a while. I’m back! I have some stuff to talk about. Specifically pregnancy. Are you my doctor or my husband? Oh you’re not? That’s cool, could you please do me a favor? You know that moment when you think about me and you realize that I am a woman, who is in her 30s, who is also married to a man and you have this deep, burning desire to ask me when I’m going to have a baby? I would love it, like more than anything in the whole world, more than chocolate ice cream, ghost stories, star wars paraphernalia, and my Maw-Maw combined if you would never ask a single human woman that question ever again, for the rest of your life. I know you mean well! I know you’re a nice person! I know that lots of times married straight ladies in their 30s have kids! I am aware of all of these things! What I’m saying, and hear me out here, is that you should please shut up. Just stop talking.

Here are the top 3 reasons why you should just shut that shit down and resist the urge to ask women about babies.

1- All women above the age of 30 without children are actually part of an alien race of lizard people. Our sole mission on earth is to end the human race. Seriously, they make teenage lizard people join the lizard military when we turn 18 to learn how to perfectly mimic earthen humans and infiltrate their schools, governments, churches, coffee shops, hospitals, you name it we’re there. They also train us in lethal lizard combat. Encouraging us to reproduce is actually encouraging the ultimate destruction of the human race. Why would you do that to your fellow man? Why would you want that? What kind of monster are you?

2- Maybe I (or some other woman like me) have tried,  more than once, more than 100 times to have a baby and it didn’t end up how I thought it would. Maybe I either can’t get pregnant or I have been pregnant and I lost my baby and every single time you ask me when I’m going to have a baby, I think about the time (or times!) that I thought I would be a mom. Maybe I remember the person I thought was going to grow inside of me and that I already loved instantly even though I never thought that could be possible. Maybe I remember the life I imagined as a mother, raising a child with my husband (who you should also stop asking about babies), and then I remember that I lost that in some way and I will never have that life. Maybe, every time you ask me about when I’m finally going to have a baby I think about how much I wish things were different and how hard it was to find out again and again that I actually wasn’t going to have a baby and maybe that is incredibly painful and maybe you mean well but maybe I have to go to the bathroom, or my car, or just around the corner where no one can see me and take a deep breath and remind myself that this is Stop and Shop or work or Target and it would be inappropriate to punch you for making me feel this way. Maybe.

3- Do you remember before how we established that you’re not my doctor or my husband? Cool, me too. This means that whatever is happening in my womb, or my brain, or my vagina, or bedroom, is none of your business. Like so far from anything you should be asking me about it’s actually kind of insane that those words just came out of your mouth. Do you want to talk about the weather? This awesome shirt I’m wearing that has a SUPER SWEET brachiosaurus on it? Why this guy in line behind me is so close I can feel him breathing into my hair? Famous serial killers? Really specific lyrics in songs that make you cry? Whether you should get a massage this weekend (you should)? If I’ve ever been to Europe?  Politics? Horrible teen romantic comedy movies? I am all yours. All day. Do you know what we cannot talk about? Whether or not my husband and I recently banged and I am now with child, or when we plan on banging so I can get knocked up. Just. Nope. Stop. Hey! Stop it. Right now. It is none of your business! Ever! If I did not walk up to you and say, “hey do you want to know if I’m pregnant or planning on getting pregnant soon?” then this should never come up in conversation. I am sure I like you or even love you very much and I am sure you are sincere about wanting me to be happy but honestly shut up.

In conclusion, I love you and I know you’re great but if you ask me one more time when I’m going to have a baby you may see me on the local news, standing in traffic, waiving my arms around, screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs. So if you could please do me this one favor, I would really appreciate it.