I wrote to HGTV on Friday night. Can you believe that? I am desperate. We were watching House Hunters. I turned to Tobyjoe and said, “Call them and tell them to find us a house.”

“Do it. Write them.”

“Nah. Kidding.”

“That’s how it happens. People are sitting around, frustrated, they send an email and then the get on TV. Write them.”

So I did. I sent an email that will end up in the digital equivalent to a dead letter office.

Here’s the deal. To many living elsewhere, we actually can afford a pretty expensive house. There are many New Yorkers who would disagree, however, because the market here is so insanely resilient nothing ever goes down in price and instead continues to rise. It’s an enigma really. Manhattan was one of the only cities this year to rise where real estate is concerned. Pittsburgh was another. (Hello, Pennsylvania! My first love!)

To people living almost everywhere else in America, we probably sound like a big bunch of babies. And believe me, there are days where I have to stop myself from throwing a temper tantrum. To those who can afford to buy near Manhattan, however, we’re actually at the low end of the financial spectrum. To prove this point, I called a Westchester based Weichert agent last week and when I gave her our price range, she hurried our call. But not before reassuring me she’d call me back the following day. She never called. This isn’t the first time this has happened. We’ve been ignored by several agents because of how little we can afford when you compare it to the majority of the buyers around New York. Just today we were told by another agent that we simply must stop looking in her area based on our price range.

Agents just don’t want to waste their time on us. I can’t say I blame them. But my goodness does it ever make me angry sometimes. I feel totally defeated.

In order to buy a house in the city or close by, one must sacrifice safety, (in most cases) the quality of schools, the house’s structure, size or both. A lot of “affordable” options are total gut jobs. The house across the street from our apartment (which was advertised as a total gut job) sold for 800,000.

We don’t have that kind of money or time to devote to our living quarters.

We did discover some neighborhoods in New Jersey that worked but we were scared off by the taxes (one of the houses we looked at had an annual property tax of 12,000), the crime rate and/or the school system. Plus, like what you see happening here in Brooklyn, most all of the time the houses we could afford out that way needed a lot of work.

Again, we don’t have the money right now or time to renovate or even upkeep, which is precisely what we were looking at in Maplewood.

Then there’s the loan/down payment fiasco. In the city, you need at least 10% down, a lot of the time 20%. Most houses in our area sell for 700,000 and up. Even if we could afford that (which we can not) we don’t have the down payment. We don’t have 100 grand to put down on a house in order to make our monthly payments close to affordable.

If we buy in a safer neighborhood outside of the city (we’re talking an hour’s commute by train) and forego the down payment (which I’m not sure any bank will allow for these days) we would suddenly qualify for a jumbo loan. The interest rate is phenomenally high. That’s irresponsible and quite frankly, we simply can’t do it. If anything were to pop up (an appliance dies, flooding in the basement, termites, whatever) we’d have to use credit to pay things off. I think that’s irresponsible.

On Saturday we went even further out. And guess what? The houses are still very expensive. In some cases, the property taxes went down, and the houses were in much better shape, but they were a lot smaller and more expensive than what we were seeing in Maplewood, South Orange, and West Orange. We liked several of the homes we saw. But again, the lack of a sizable down payment to keep us out of jumbo loan territory stops us every time.

We have discussed downsizing our rental here in Brooklyn and buying a house two hours or more outside the city just to get some equity. But the rents here have gone up almost as much as the mortgages. We can’t afford both a mortgage (even a really cheap one) and rent. And since the rents have gone up so much in our area, finding another rental would mean not being able to save defeating the purpose entirely.

We’re stuck. Not to sound dramatic, we’re basically being asked to leave.

Why am I writing today? I’m not sure. Perhaps so I can one day look back on all of this and say, Thank goodness that’s all over! Because the indecision is killing me. Our inability to buy a place in a city that I have called home since 2000 is really just heartbreaking. Perhaps I’m writing because I hope that someone out there is in the same situation, misery does love a little company, after all.

And I’ll admit it. There’s a small part of me (the same part of me who buys a lottery ticket once every three years) who hopes that by some magical twist of fate my words will fall upon the ears of some real estate bigwig, someone who can step in and assist us, let us know what we may be overlooking. Because I have no idea how to make this work. This just isn’t my area of expertise.

Our lease is up in December and we still have no idea where we’ll be living. I can’t even begin to explain the amount of stress Tobyjoe and I are enduring based on that fact. And all the while we’re trying to raise our astonishingly happy son.

If houses were bought on smiles alone, we’d have thousands thanks to him.

This past spring, completely defeated as to where we should live, I turned to Em for advice. I gave him a business traveler’s atlas I own. It features all major U.S. cities in the front and every U.S. state at the back. The front section features a couple of Canadian cities as well. I gave him the beat up, spiral bound atlas and said, “It’s up to you, Em. Where do you want us to move? Where do you want to live?” I figure it this way, if he chooses the place and we move there, whenever he inevitably complains about it someday we’ll tell him it’s all his fault.

But my plan did not work. Twice he opened the atlas. Both times he pointed to a map of Canada.

If Em had his way, he’d have us living in Toronto or Montreal.

Deduction: While entertaining for both you and the baby, using said baby like one might a magic eight ball doesn’t grant the best results. Unless you’re canadian.

Well, we’re looking at houses again after a two month hiatus. Last weekend we put all our baggage aside (tried to) and started looking at Trulia again, researching towns and crime rates, schools and distances to and from the city.

We use Trulia a lot. It’s actually a pretty awesome Web site if you’re looking for a house. We used it constantly last spring when we were looking in Maplewood, South Orange, Metuchen and West Orange. Between the two of us, that site was hit hundreds of time per day. And now that we’re trying again, it’s on heavy rotation. More often than not, Trulia is left open in the browser even when we’re away from the computer.

This Saturday, I walked away from the laptop to check on Em who was napping. When I returned I saw that Murray had once again taken a walk across the keyboard.

Written in the “Location” field on Trulia was the following:

Here’s a closer look:

Deduction: While answers seem a little LOLish and broad, letting your cat act as the magic eight ball (on his or her terms, of course) might not be such a bad idea after all.

But I’m not sure where or what LAK… is.

I grew up playing with dirt. I grew up lifting rocks, collecting salamanders, crawfish and wooly bears. My nails and hands were always filthy. I was constantly outside digging and exploring the woods around our Central Pennsylvania home. I loved the outdoors, which is why I am really itching to get out of Brooklyn and find something a little more environmentally satisfying for my son. Plus, I think I’m making poor decisions as a city-dwelling mama.

Yesterday I took Em to the park. I take him to the park every day at least once. Our afternoon jaunt usually consists of some exploration. I wrangle him into some shoes and I let him run around a bit. He always goes straight for the dirt. It doesn’t matter if it’s a foot-wide patch of dirt surrounding an out-of-place tree or a bigger patch worn down by soccer matches. He will find the dirt. He loves dirt. He loves picking up sticks and pieces of bark. He carries them around like souvenirs. It’s adorable really.

I generally try not to concern myself with how other parents raise their children. Unless it directly effects me in some way, it’s none of my business. And I should hope that others aren’t judging me for how I raise my own. But sometimes I have to concern myself with what I’m doing when dealing with other families. It’s the whole social contract thing. If my son is playing with another child, I should keep an eye on what he’s doing and how they’re reacting to what he’s doing. I won’t lie. This is very difficult especially for someone like me who spends too much time worrying about what others think. And it’s becoming increasingly more difficult as he gets older. This is perhaps the most trying aspect of having a toddler for me so far—figuring out what the other parent is thinking and if I should react.

Yesterday Emory was running around with another little girl. She was probably five months his senior but smaller in size. They were playing with her rubber ball. He stopped every now and again to pick up sticks in the patch of dirt surrounding the tree. I let him. I figured that since the little girl’s guardians where letting her play with a rubber ball that had been all over the dirt and pavement, letting my kid play with dirt while playing with their little girl was OK. At one point, a bit nervous about the situation, I said, “Em, why do you have to play in the dirt all the time?” (Incidentally, it’s funny the number of times I ask Em a question which is really meant for the person listening in. But that’s a post for another day—”talking through the baby” is what we call it.)

The girl’s guardians shrugged and said, “He’s a boy.”

So this continued. Em picked up dirt and sticks and giant pieces of bark as the little girl teased him with her rubber ball. He’d touch her face with his hands, and her hands to his. There were a few times Em would grab the ball and try and put it in his mouth. I would snatch it up right away and wipe the spit on my pants.

“Em, do you have to put everything in your mouth!” I said.

“He’s a boy.” They shrugged.

Fifteen minutes into our spontaneous play-date with complete strangers, the little girl bent down and picked up a handful of dirt. Her father ran over and lightly slapped the top of her hand. “NO! CACA!” He said.

Realizing the error of her ways, she immediately dropped the dirt, sticks and bark, which Emory proceeded to collect. I mean, who would let perfectly good dirt go to waste like that? Not my kid.

I need to have another child. That way, I can let my filthy children run around, eat dirt, slobber all over one another and I won’t have to worry about whether I’m poisoning someone else’s child.

I’m gonna breed me my own little filthy family.

---

Do you let your little ones play in the dirt at a public playground? How do you teach them not to? I can’t figure this out. I realize that city dirt can be questionable, but how do you keep a toddler from playing in the dirt? You’d have to keep him or her inside all the time. I can’t allow for that. He simply has to get outside time. But I can’t stop him from playing with dirt either. Am I not being cautious enough while parenting and living in the city?

Parenting is physically, mentally, and emotionally draining. That’s all there is to it. (But it’s awesome too!)

Murray was orphaned at a very young age. I’m sure many of you know that already. He was so young he had to be bottle-fed by human hands. I talked over Chapter 56 with Murray and he agreed that those human hands are what I need to write about today.

Murray was nurtured by two people: Lisa and PJ. Though PJ doesn’t quite remember Murray (due to the number of cats he’s cared for before, and since) he is responsible for much of Murray’s trust of humans. When Murray was a few weeks old, Lisa took over. Because Murray is unable to thank them personally, I’m going to try and do it for him.

PJ and Lisa have dedicated themselves to starting a unique animal advocacy group, and I’m attempting to contribute what I can to their effort.

THEIR MISSION

“The Empty Cages Collective (ECC) is a New York-based animal and environmental advocacy organization. ECC aims to cultivate a culture where animals are recognized as fellow sentient beings worthy of respectful and compassionate treatment. Through advocacy, education, hands-on rescue and assistance, the ECC envisions a world free of animal exploitation, abuse, and ecologically destructive behavior.”

WHAT THEY’VE BEEN DOING

They Trap, Neuter and Release animals back into their natural habitats. Here’s where being a realist can actually make a difference. As opposed to someone like me, who can only see the big picture, someone who wants ALL animal abuse to stop, all homeless cats to be adopted, all things to wrap up perfectly. It’s never going to happen that way. Instead of doing something, I get overwhelmed and give up.

PJ isn’t like that. Neither is Lisa. Sure, they want all of those things as well, but they’re a bit more level-headed about it. They take it day by day. They’re hoping that with every cat they trap and neuter, a dozen less will be born next season. They’re hoping that we city-dwellers can one day coexist with our city-dwelling friends. They’re hoping to teach people that animals living within the city aren’t a nuisance and that it’s not necessary to kill every stray or feral or wild animal you come across.

There’s room for all of us. Hell, they were probably here first anyway.

The problems they’re facing is that they’ve found so many adoptable kittens during their trapping efforts that they’re running out of room and resources to continue with their TNR efforts. To put it bluntly, they need some help.

HOW WE CAN HELP

When I asked PJ what they needed the most, he gave me the following list: donate, volunteer, and adopt. He reiterated twice to me that donate and volunteer are head-to-head in urgency. Granted, if they can get the cats they have in-house adopted soon, they might have more money to use for TNR. Obviously, adoption is important as well.

I’m writing this today on behalf of Murray and all the critters out there that are needlessly killed. Can you help Lisa and PJ and their cause? Do you have a dollar to spare? Do you have some time to donate? Do you have a Web site you can use to help get the word out? Can you write them some kind words? Anything will help, any amount, any number of hands or hours, any advertisement—big or small.

If you have some extra paypal cash and/or an Amazon gift card you’re not using, visit this link and send some stuff their way. (Some of the items on that list run as low as 4 bucks.)

If you’re interested in adopting a cat, here are the animals they have up for adoption. I’m going to put up some pictures as well.

And if you got some old balled up dollar bills you washed in that pair of jeans from last winter, they’ll take monetary donations as well.

For those of you who have some cash but don’t have a lot of time and just want to click a button and be done with it, here’s a link to their paypal account.

To read more about what they’ve been doing click here.

From here on out, I’m going to be donating as much as I can out of the money I make from advertising on this Web site. It’s not much, but it’s something. I purchased 90 pounds of cat litter for them yesterday. Like I said, every little thing matters right now. It doesn’t have to be a huge sum—or cash at all.

At some point in the near future, I plan on designing some banners for them so that other bloggers can add them to their site. I hope that you will join me getting the word out for them. I realize that they’re Brooklyn based right now, but if this works out—this model—it could become a nationwide advocacy group.

If you have a dime or or some time to spare, do it for Murray. He wouldn’t be here had it not been for these two people and their great big hearts.

I can’t hear too well. I read lips a lot (which is why I can’t hear people in the dark and have trouble watching Grey’s Anatomy sometimes). “What?” is a very common response from me. But more often than not, I simply try and fill in the blanks. And I’ve become quite good at it. Let’s say I hear three words of what someone says. Based on context and the words I did hear, I try and figure out the ones I did not hear. Basically, I replay sentences over and over again my head until I figure it out.

But sometimes this doesn’t take place as quickly as it should.

We have a schedule here now. I deal with Em during the day. I put him down for his daily naps and Tobyjoe usually takes the bedtime ritual. Whenever TJ puts Em down for the night, I run around frantically trying to clean up that day’s mess readying the apartment for tomorrow’s. It’s all about routine. I feel that about 75% of what goes into being a decent parent (and by “decent” I mean one who isn’t repeatedly smacking his or her head against the wall while puddles of drool form at their feet) is nailing down a schedule.

We finally tamed that beast. We finally have a schedule. And it’s finally working.

Granted, we broke a rule in order to get this to work. I hear it’s the Great Dental Rule. The funny thing is, I had no idea about this rule until after we started giving Em his nightly bottle. I had no idea it wasn’t a good idea to give a baby a bottle in his or her crib because of tooth decay. No clue whatsoever. We did it because it worked for us. We give him a bottle before bed, in his crib. He feeds it to himself and he falls asleep almost immediately.

Oops.

I figure it this way, you’re given two chances with teeth, right? Hopefully the kid ends up with my genetic makeup where teeth are concerned. Here I am, 34-years-old and I haven’t ever had a cavity. (Knock on wood.) I never even had one when I had my baby teeth. Let’s hope he gets lucky. And let’s hope he doesn’t need a nighttime bottle whenever his new teeth are coming in.

Every night, Toby and Em play. After they play, Toby will get him dressed for bed, read to him, whatever, as I prepare his evening bottle. I drop it off and they do their thing. Occasionally Tobyjoe and I will text back and forth between rooms.

“Tea?”

“Sure!”

or

“Want relief? He’s fussy tonight. I will step in!”

You get the picture.

But then we had the great text-communication breakdown of 2008. (Damn ATT and iPhone over-saturation). Since that night (a story for another day) we’ve been practicing more reliable means of communicating—like picking up the phone and calling one another. (I know. Crazy concept. Even crazier? Walking from one room to the next to speak in person.)

On Thursday night while I was running around trying to clean up, the phone rang. It was Toby calling. I thought, Well, that’s weird. Why is he calling from the other room?

“Hello?” I asked.

He spoke deliberately and slowly in a creepy, hushed whisper. “AM. I. OK?”

Is he OK? I thought. Where is he? Why is he calling me to ask me if he’s OK? He has the baby! He better be OK! They both better be OK! Why is he whispering? HOLY SHIT! Who is in the house with us? Who is he avoiding?

“What?” I asked again? “What do you mean? Are you OK?” I tried to sound calm. But it was too late. The line was dead.

I started to completely freak out. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO TOBY? HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DECIDE IF HE’S OK? I DON’T KNOW IF TOBY IS OK!!

I DON’T KNOW IF YOU’RE OK, HONEY! I JUST DON’T KNOW!

And then I remembered my hearing disability. Maybe I heard him wrong. I started to try and to figure out what he really said. I hadn’t heard anything—no big sound, nothing—so he must be OK. But what had he said?

I played it back again in my head.

AM I OK?

EM I OH KAY?

EM EYE EL KAY?

EM EYE EL K?

“Oh!” I gasped. “M-I-L-K! He wants milk!”

Do they look like us?

(You may create your own here. Share them if you do! I’d love to see what you come up with!)

Tobyjoe and I are a year into our new job as parents and we’re still working on a schedule. I am told that this is one of the more difficult tasks to manage once the baby arrives. And in our case that’s true. I wrote about this before—juggling work and life, workouts and alone time. We don’t yet have it figured out, but things are admittedly better. (Although, I think Tobyjoe works too hard [us included] and never gets any alone time except for on the NYC subway and that’s a downright shame.)

Anyway, it’s been tough and it’s always changing.

One of the things I am most curious about is how others deal with meals, and more specifically dinner. I have an idea (based on zero scientific evidence or research whatsoever) that sitting down together as a family will keep our son from becoming a monster whenever he enters his teenage years. I know. This is absurd. Every teenager is a monster at some point. But I think we can turn the monster level down a notch if we try and eat at least one meal together. Plus, I feel that having a daily conversation—even if it’s forced—is important.

Here’s the deal though. It just doesn’t seem possible unless we’re willing to feed Em dinner after 8 PM. Due to work, commute, and then dinner preparation (plus, my gym time begins the moment Tobyjoe gets home from work), dinner usually doesn’t start for us until after 8 PM.

Here’s a snapshot of my daily schedule:

7:00 AM: Em wakes up.

7:30 AM: Feed Em breakfast. Drink coffee. Clean up, organize.

9:00 AM: TJ leaves. Walk him to subway.

10:00 AM: Get home put Em down for a nap.

12:00 – 12:30 PM: Lunch

2:30 PM: Nap (if I’m lucky. Usually doesn’t sleep until after 3.)

4:00 PM: Walk to park. Swing.

5:30 or 6:00 PM: Em eats dinner.

7:00 PM: Head to gym.

8:00 PM-8:30 PM: Start our dinner

8:30 PM-9:00 PM: Em goes to bed.

I guess my questions are: what time do you eat? Do you eat together as a family? If so, does it mean keeping your little one up later at night? How do you make it work if you make it work at all?

I always write these wordy Tuesdays With Murray posts. So I thought today I’d put up some pictures of the fuzzy feller instead. He’s just such a sweet boy.

This is Murray.

Here he is about to yawn.

Here he is yawning.

He really enjoys letting his balls or neuticles hang out in the afternoon sunshine.

I wish you could bury your face in his belly each and every day like I do.

Amanda Peet gave an interview to Cookie Magazine recently. She discussed motherhood, toys and vaccinations. She’s imploring people to vaccinate and isn’t candy-coating her message at all. She tells Cookie Mag, “Frankly, I feel that parents who don’t vaccinate their children are parasites.”

Zing! Snap! Zing! (She later apologized for the harsh delivery but stands behind the idea.)

During a television interview on Good Morning America last week, she said, “I’m not a doctor, which brings me to another point. It seems like the media is often giving celebrities and actors more authority on this issue than they’re giving the experts and that’s a sad fact. And I know that’s a paradox – that’s part of why I wanted to become a spokesperson, so I could say, ‘Please don’t listen to me, don’t listen to the actors, go to the experts.”

I have my own thoughts about vaccinations. I did hours and hours worth of research when Em was brand new. I worried myself silly over them. In the beginning, I actually contemplated not vaccinating Em, an idea I find completely crazy now. I’m not sure if I was merely getting caught up in the wave of hysteria so prevalent these days or if I was just worried about the actual needle-sticking part. But I worried myself sick.

And then he had his first vaccine (we did stagger them) and everything went well. After that, I began to loosen up a bit.

We chose to spread them out not because we thought a vaccine might cause neurological damage, we spread them out because I felt that his body should have enough time to cope with each one. This meant more co-pays, more visits to the doctor, and (unfortunately for everyone) more needle pricks.

We’re waiting on a few and skipping some as well. For example, we opted to wait on Hepatitis B until he is a little bit older. And I decided against the flu vaccine. We’re also waiting a bit to start the MMR—not too long, but a little bit.

We did couple some of them. I made my decisions based on the statistics on the CDC Web site. Basically, the higher incidences of side-effects, the more likely I’d give him that vaccine on its own. The more “easy going” vaccine (for example, Polio) the more likely I’d couple it with another. (If for some reason you are interested in seeing how we spaced them, feel free to email me.)

It’s my opinion that yes, parents should be given a choice as to whether they vaccinate or not. No one should ever be forced to do something to their child because the government says so. However, I think information needs to be made readily available to every American no matter who they are (rich, poor, black, white, purple, old or young). I think insurance companies should cover the cost of classes for parents-to-be. I think this may help correct misconceptions behind vaccines and teach parents why vaccinating your child is important. I was offered (and took) a breastfeeding class and a parenting class. Why can’t hospitals or pediatricians offer a class or two about immunizations? Because I firmly believe that if a parent does the research, if they can ask questions, they will feel better about vaccinating their child.

I think vaccinating our children is the right thing to do and the benefits far outweigh the side-effects. Remember this post? How about this one? It took a hell of a lot of research for me to get to this point. I no longer think that the government is some kind of boogeyman trying to poison our children. And I realize that for some this change of mind may come as a surprise. Believe me, there is still nothing more horrible than taking a newborn to the doctor and watching said doctor insert a needle into his or her leg. All the research in the world won’t make the actual event any less awful. But after a year worth of research, I’m (more or less) onboard with Amanda Peet.

But don’t listen to me either. Do the research yourself. It’s the only way you’ll ever feel better about it.

We’re back in Brooklyn and this is a brief (stand-in) update.

I was really excited to be back home until this morning when we went to McCarren Park and the smell of trash was so unbearable we had to leave. And up until about a month ago, I’d have thought, well, trash is just trash. But after reading this story about a badly decomposed body that had been rotting in a storage shed near the kiddy park for several months, I’m more wary of rancid smells.

We visit the park each and every day. Who knows what we’ve been smelling all along.

Em’s birthday was a hoot. We actually had two parties for him. We had a small one for him on Friday evening. We ate lasagna and watched the opening ceremony of the olympics. We consumed ginger cake and ice cream. We fell to bed early.

On the 9th, we held a larger party for him. Relatives came from all over to celebrate. He ate chocolate for the first time. Nico made the cake. She actually made two. One for Em (shown) and a bigger one for the rest of us. It was awesome.

I was a little disappointed at his chocolate eating performance, however. He did not bury his face in the cake as I imagined. He was actually kind of confused by it and entirely too delicate. But it was really fun to watch and equally as hilarious to clean up. A bath was had before bedtime.

There was a lot of diet-unfriendly food.

With the amount of wine I consumed once he went to bed that evening, you’d have guessed it was my birthday and not my son’s. After the way I felt the following day, I’m pretty sure booze is devil piss. A friend once said to me, “You don’t realize that you really need the babysitter for the following day as well.” So true. Devil piss, people. Devil piss.

Now it’s back to the basics—the grind. Diets need to be revitalized. I stopped losing weight weeks ago. (Still working out, however.) Em and I will continue our daily walks to the park and back. We’ll continue fighting with our neighbors because he’s a toddler living on the third floor. We’ll continue fighting with the men on our street, the ones who refuse to park their cars like decent human beings. We’ll continue our daily routine of chase the baby around the house to make sure he doesn’t eat cat poop. We’ll continue getting to know one another and I’ll continue to fall more and more in love with him. We’ll continue living here, doing this, until December when our lease is up and we have no choice but to get out.

The question still weighing heavy on my mind is: where will we be whenever Em turns two? Where will we be next year at this time? Will there be corpses near where he swings? Will he eat chocolate like it’s an olympic sport?

Where will we be when he sees 24-months?

The empty field next to that question leaves me pensive.

We made it! We survived! Happy birthday Emory!

(i am in the process of writing a lengthy post about everything that happened this year, but I’m also planning a birthday party. When we return to the city, I’ll post more.)

I’m in South Jersey without my computer. You see, we’re having Em’s first birthday party at my parent’s house. They happen to have a backyard with some of the plushest green grass you’ve ever seen. Plus, they don’t have those viscous tiger mosquitoes that have taken over Brooklyn this year. If those bugs aren’t a sign of an apocalypse—even a small one—I don’t know what is.

The party is Saturday. I came down a week early. I planned on relaxing, working out, and seeing every movie out right now including the sinfully corny Mama Mia.

I’m here for a week. I’m without my computer, my husband, and most all of my clothing.

I’m also without my Murray and I’m embarrassed to admit how much I miss him. I miss him, everyone. I really, really miss him.

Especially today.

My pinkie toe is broken. I didn’t realize it was broken until last night when I suddenly could no longer walk on it. You see, about two weeks ago I stubbed it on the makeshift boundary we have set up in our (railroad) apartment to keep Em from entering the dining room. I stubbed the hell out of it. But it didn’t hurt the following day at all. I forgot about it. I’ve been running 3.25 miles each and every day since and nothing has happened. There’s been no pain. Nothing.

Now it hurts like hell. I didn’t change my workout yesterday (or the days leading up to yesterday for that matter). Why now? One would think the damned toe would have warned me before giving up entirely. No?

I’m depressed. I’ve been busting my ass to get into shape. I run every single day for at least 40 minutes. Even last week, sick with a cold, I made it to the gym. I’ve been so afraid of breaking out of the routine and losing ground. Literally.

I can’t believe a toe—the small toe even—has stopped me.

I miss my fat lovable Murray. I want to smooch him up. I want him to make me laugh.

I want Murray. Someone bring me Murray. (You can send my Tobyjoe as well.)