Oh how I’ve missed you so. Though the airwaves may have been quiet, I’ve been rather busy wading through the muck and mire of my little life here in cute and cuddly Eugene, Oregon. What’s that you ask? Oh yes, the tattoo. What is up with the tattoo, that gorgeous tattoo I had promised to show you and then never delivered? Why did I tease you so? I had no intention of jest, dear reader, the delay was an unfortunate result of my husband needing to spend not one but three two-hour stints with the tattoo artist formerly named Ryan. The very act of having tiny needles inject red, yellow and magenta dye into Corey’s arm took nearly a month of Saturdays and resulted in much scaling, scabbing and a nasty little magenta dye allergy. But as you can see, ‘twas entirely worth it as the final rendering is beauteous.

Where else have I been? Well, there was Thanksgiving (I’m the annual Turkey cooker since about 2001) and thanks to a well thawed-out free range Diestel bird and several bowlfuls of lemon zest, rosemary and olive oil, the meal was scrumdidlyumptious. There was much merriment with family in attendance (mom, sis and the newish boyfriend, the two freshly moved into their place in Vancouver, Washington). Stallwarts HGM and Jim, our good friends who show up at our door every year and who would not celebrate Thanksgiving if it weren’t for us, they being anti-Tgiving as well as con Xmas, brought delicious appetizers of stuffed mushrooms and a tasty Shiraz. Jason, our Taiwanese foreign exchange student who lives in our small in-law formerly known as the basement, and whose real name is spelled Jui-Shen, was late in replying to our invite, methinks it was a cultural snafu. Jason is wary of my tomato-laden cooking (there are no tomatoes in Taiwan) and since October has insisted on cooking his own meals (always the same dish, a motley concoction of burnt onion, garlic and soy that seeps up through the grates in our floors making us wish we had imposed a $50 smell tax on the apartment). Jason brought his friend, Antonio, an affable mate who is from Mexico, quick to laugh and patient with my halting Spanish. B, who is now 21 months, perfectly timed his toddlerishness. Just as the whipped cloud potatoes were being scooped onto plates he demanded to watch his Twenty Trucks DVD. We ate the entire meal, plus dessert, with the “Can you name twenty trucks? I sure do bet you can” song playing in the background. We chatted and laughed through dinner, and told our international friends how we all had been taught to believe the lies in the history textbooks of our youth. It wasn’t the Pilgrims that shared their meat and vegetables with the Indians on that hallowed celebratory feast, that first Thanksgiving. It was actually the other way around. If not for those nice Indians, the Pilgrims would have starved.

It’s really hard to make depression kicky and fun, and so I’ve written very little about my husband’s experience with depression over the last several years. Most of you had no idea. So surprise, Happy Holidays! Now that we’re loosening its tight grip on our small world, I can begin to make sense of the depression and maybe even laugh. Case in point: Corey, after months of my pleading, finally got his butt to a psychologist. This psychologist was supposed to act as a therapist and serve as someone to whom, other than myself, Corey could vent his frustrations. As fate would have it, this therapist was also a specialist in ADHD, and within fifteen minutes of Corey walking through his door, was well on his way to diagnosing him with ADHD. After further meetings and numerous diagnostic surveys, it was discovered that not only did Corey have ADHD but he had a particular brand of ADHD and that this particular brand of ADHD quite probably caused the depression which has so upset our happy little family. It’s a wonderful thing to have a label, an answer. So now C’s time off is spent digesting ADHD books with Chapter subheadings like “Memory Difficulties” and “How Not to be a Piss Poor Spouse” (Well, I made that last one up but you get the idea). I can’t say the ADHD diagnosis is a shock. Corey has always been a fast talker, anyone who has spent two minutes with Corey knows his words spill out at lightning speed. Oh, and for years I’ve called him “ADD boy” (mainly because he gets distracted easily and prefers to hold three different conversations at once with three different people, and usually succeeds). To be honest, Corey and I have always assumed that his mother had it too—those of you who have set foot in her museum of a house can attest to the amazing quantity of tschotchke and art and statues and pictures upon pictures upon pictures. It truly is a living shrine to ADD—which begs the question—is Corey’s ADHD biological or environmental or a lot of both?) And funnier still, only a month before Corey got his butt to the psychologist, one of his fourth grade students, in a private conversation regarding her work as an ADHD student, looked my husband, her teacher, straight in the eye and said, “Well, you’re ADD too, right?”

The ADHD diagnosis has been one gigantic DUH! I still have to remind Corey to do most household chores, which exhausts me and leaves me resenting my role as nagging bitch. Corey also, and more noticibly, retains his weird fetish that causes him to hoard everything (including fortune cookie wrappers)—a function of ADHD. If you’ve ever stood in our living room you’ve noticed the gazillion little toys, the bird’s nest, the Masai warrior beaded baskets, the porcelain bunnies and the three thousand books that line our shelves. Ninety percent of these objects are not mine and if Corey had his druthers, there would be twice as many sugar skulls from Oaxaca. But no, dear reader, at some point during 2004 in my third trimester and uncomfortable as hell, I demanded that my husband take half the shit down. It was the first time that I had won the “We have too much goddamn stuff” argument but it would not be the last. Now, as I write this, he’s boxing up books and sifting through greeting cards that have sat on our mantle since 2001. He’s making lists for himself that include the words, “Take out trash.” And he’s SMILING, he’s actually humming! Never before has a wife been so thrilled to learn that her husband has a mental disorder.

On a chilly day in early November, B was a cranky, sleep-deprived toddler wailing in his crib. He needed sleep, so much so that I felt even HE knew he needed sleep and yet try as he may, no dice. Noisy garbage trucks ambled by just outside his bedroom and our OCD -plagued neighbor was grinding away as he mowed his lawn for the fourth time that week. I lay on the couch trying to relax while B screamed his bloody head off and then quieted . . . and then stirred again. I wanted so much to clean the dishes, but because the kitchen is directly across from B’s bedroom and the acoustics in our old house rival the Metropolitan Opera, venturing anywhere near the kitchen is a recipe for disaster unless the child is in deep REM sleep. Thoroughly defeated, I settled into the living room couch ready to skim the newest issue of “Life and Style”, confident that the dishes would remain crusty. Just then, the phone rang and it was my mom, asking me what I’d like for Christmas. My sarcastic answer: A new house. As if the fairy princess herself had waved her wand and whispered in my ear, “And so you shall!” by the first week in December we were writing a check for $5,000, earnest money in negotiations to buy a house in Portland. Next time I’m asking for world peace.

Cheers and Happy Holidays,
Emily