Drunken Mama

Note to self: getting drunk on Sunday night can work out for you sometimes.

I was at a really low point mentally this weekend. Take one part severe job stress, add a cup of not sleeping through the night for almost three weeks, a tablespoon of some mysterious rash that is invading my forearms, a pinch of being sad over the baby shower on Saturday, an ounce of my f*cking laptop dying yet again, and a healthy dash of a preschooler who has honestly been quite the little jackass this week, and that makes One Drunk Mama.

I’m not the type of person that really likes to discuss my problems with the world. Back in the early winter last year, Joey and I hit the first rough patch of our marriage in the almost ten years we’ve been together. Rough as in I began to have thoughts of running away to the islands and shacking up with a cabana boy who didn’t speak English but was really good with rubbing coconut oil in special places. As the weeks dragged on and we slogged our way through the problems, I finally confessed to a friend of mine what had been going on. She was shocked, to say the least – I had maintained such stoicism in my daily life that I hadn’t given the slightest hint that there was unrest at Builder Mama Headquarters. As a matter of fact, part of how I was masking my pain over the situation was to become the Ultimate MILF Party Animal. We had parties. We went out several nights a week for dinner or drinks with friends. We had something going on every stinking night of the week – all to avoid being in this big house, alone together.

Well, we got through it all and the cabana boy became a fond and distant memory. Fast forward to this weekend when the stress of the past few weeks kind of came to a head at the end of last week, exacerbated by the lack of sleep. You see, Monkey Man has horrible allergies and will have flare-ups every so often. Usually the biggest problem is that he will cough during the night – and since his bedroom is on a different floor than ours, I still use a baby monitor. When he coughs, it wakes me up and I will rush upstairs to give him a drink of water in an effort to get him to stop coughing. And Joey, of course, sleeps through the entire thing. The irony here is that I'm trying to keep him from being awakened by the coughing, especially since on a typical day he's bidding about $3 million worth of work so needless to say he needs to be somewhat sharp.

This time it’s been going on for three weeks. And with all the work stress with my intern f*cking up everything she touches, I would come staggering back down the stairs, hurl myself into bed, and then lie in bed obsessing about work and about a million other things. It was like having a newborn all over again.

Friday night, I came home and took two Benedryl, drank a large cup of hot chocolate, and fell into an eleven-hour coma. Saturday night, same thing. By Sunday, I finally felt human again.

So what better way to celebrate the return of your sanity than to get drunk? We went to a comedy club last night to see a famous comedian – I won’t say who, but he did a hilarious monologue on jacking off that had me almost peeing my pants – and before he even got on stage I had imbibed a teensy bit too much. I went to bed last night dreading today, and praying to everything holy that I wouldn’t wake up with a big pumpkin head.

This morning when the alarm went off at 5:10, I took a physical inventory:

Head? Not hurting. Check.
Eyes? No blurrier than usual, not bloodshot. Check.
Stomach? Empty, but good. Check!

It’s a miracle. Not that I’m going to do this every Sunday night, but nice to know that even as an old coot I can still hang. My partying ways need to go on temporary hiatus, though. Today I signed up for a 5K at the end of next month, and then an 8K in November. I must be insane. But you knew that already.